Murphy's Law
by Caithyra
Summary: Life just wouldn't cut Elle a break. First she has the misfortune to marry an abusive criminal of a CIA agent. Then her new apartment is destroyed by giant robots. And THEN, when she thinks things have calmed down, her ex and the giant robots returns.
1. Conflicts of Interest

_Most of the OC Transformers stories I've read usually involve a human who had a perfectly normal, if a bit more boring than usual, life. Sometimes it feels like they've been waiting for the Transformers to appear in order to start their lives._

_So I thought, "Hey, what if the Transformers interrupt an extraordinary and very busy life? What if another conflict gets mixed in with their conflicts?"_

_What if my OC's life is so fully booked that putting the Transformers on top of that is ridiculous? What if her life is already a runaway train, and meeting Transformers simply forces her to change tracks?_

* * *

**Murphy's Law**

_001_

Conflicts of Interest

Conflict is a funny thing. It could be born from something as little as children in daycare wanting the last of the green sequins on their Christmas cards, or it could be born from planet-wide rebellion to an old system, only to travel to another galaxy, another solar system, another planet all together. There were other kinds of conflict as well, that of a person in physical therapy trying to force their body back in shape, or the war waged by a therapist and their patient against past trauma.

There were even conflicts when people weren't the instigators, when Mother Nature flexed her muscles, when she showed everyone that yes, she's that awesome and terrifying and if she wished it, she could kill them all.

Which was Elle Murphy's first thought as her tiny apartment shook. Her second thought didn't even register as a giant, robotic hand burst through her living room window (and wall). Her third thought, however, was very loud. _Run!_

And run she did. All the way to her bedroom, out the window and down the fire escape. She heard screams, and even in her tiny, deserted alley, many ran away from the shaking, rumbling and screeching. Only to scream and turn back just as Elle jumped down from the ladder, nearly getting run over as another metallic creature slid by.

Fortunately for Elle, she wasn't nearly as panicked as the rest of the masses, having lived a fairly interesting life before setting up in the tiny apartment. In her experience, and mind you, it was quite a lot of experience for a nineteen-year-old (that's where the 'interesting life' bit came in), the best way to outrun conflict was by way of the biggest conflict. Basically, you run towards the doom and gloom, pass it, and then keep going. If you ran the other way, you were liable to get hurt by mistake as the attacks in your area wouldn't be focused towards an enemy target. They would just be random and hard to predict.

Or at least she hoped so, because the way opposed from the core of the conflict was being blocked by a giant robot.

Adrenaline pumping, she took off, nearly running into a desperate guy with a box, and then another giant robot, who, fortunately, didn't seem to care about stepping on her at the moment. She just about dodged a flying car, slowly realizing that maybe these robots didn't care about conserving their punches to just their enemies. _Oh god, I'm doomed! Leftleftleft, this is the right way, right?_

By now the neighborhood was so battered that she had a hard time recognizing her location. It didn't help that giant signs that used to be to the south of her apartment had suddenly landed in the east. She found herself picking a random street, hoping against hope that she was going the right way.

Only to run into a blinding light, and an explosion later, she found herself staring up at a clear, blue sky.

Carefully, she turned her head (_What about spinal injuries, you idiot?_ her common sense protested), only to stare straight into a robotic face.

There was a dimming, blue light where its 'eyes' were, and she tried to smile reassuringly, instinct taking over. This robot was as, if not more, injured than she felt. "Hey," she rasped out.

At first she thought it dead, but a quiet click told her otherwise. She kept her wavering smile, realizing that she would watch this robot die. She hated watching creatures die. "This was one hell of a day, wasn't it?"

A soft whirr was her answer.

"If that building is where it's supposed to be, then I was pretty much thrown several blocks by that explosion," she continued conversationally. "How about you, what's your story?"

The lights were dimming, and sudden panic gripped her. "Heyheyhey, stay awake! You gotta stay awake!" With a painful grunt, she flipped over and crawled towards the robot. "I'm no mechanic, but you're alive, right? And things that are alive needs to stay awake until medics show up and stabilize us." She reached the robot and touched its chest, this seemed to revive it slightly and she smiled as brilliantly as she could towards it. "Stay with me."

A shudder went through the robot, and suddenly the plates beneath her hand slid away, revealing a weak, pulsating light. It was then she noticed the glow all around her, a thick sludge leaking from the robot, forming a pool that they laid in. It was in the same color as the light.

It took her a second, but she soon realized what was going on. "That's your heart, right? And this is your blood -oh my god! We have to stop the bleeding!" She struggled to her feet, bracing herself against the robot, but what she saw, once standing, extinguished all hope. The robot was missing its entire lower half.

With a choked exclamation, she fell back down, tears streaming down her face. She tried to dry them, but they kept coming, still, she smiled through them, as comfortingly as she could, while crawling closer. "Help should be on its way. I'll stay with you until it comes, right, so don't worry."

But as she said that the robot's eyes flickered out and the light pulsated one last time before dissipating.

Just a moment too late, the ground shook as a giant robot, much larger than the one she sat with, towered over them. She felt all tingly and strange for a moment, and as her consciousness slipped, she heard a large voice call out for assistance.

* * *

Bright white, beeping noises and antiseptic smells assaulted her as she woke up. _Great, I'm in a hospital. Again._ It took her several seconds to realize _why_ she was in the hospital, considering that it was month since she left- _Oh right, giant robots._

She took this moment to reflect on her life, as it seemed as good a time as any to check for memory loss. Lets see, born two adventuring parents who died in a freak accident involving mountain climbing, wolverines and a waterfall. Check. Got into foster care with possibly the craziest, paranoid foster parents yet, whose paranoia ended in them accidentally shooting themselves. Check. Bounced around the system for a while. Check. Adopted by her parents' old friend, also an adventurer and a thrill-seeker on top of that (also died in freak accident). Check. Was seduced by a thirty-year-old man and married him at eighteen. Found out that he was an abusive ass. Divorced him. Served him with an order of restraint. Moved. Found out that his undisclosed job is as a CIA secret agent and that he couldn't let go of her. Was found, hurt, ended up in hospital. Moved. Was found, hurt, ended up in hospital. Moved. Was found, hurt and ended up in hospital again and moved to Mission City. Where giant robots destroyed her new home, was hurt and ended up in hospital again. Check, check and check.

It was around that time that a nurse noticed her open eyes and called for the doctor. Before she knew it, Elle was having lights in her eyes, confirming her identity, but strangely enough, they didn't ask if she remembered the time closest to her falling unconscious. It made her edgy.

Nurses and doctors _always_ asked her if she remembered what put her in the hospital, yet these ones actively shushed her when she tried to speak of anything but her own name, age, birthday and parents' names.

Finally they were satisfied, but still refused to let her ask questions. "You'll need to be kept for observation for a while," was all they disclosed, and she wryly noted no certain dates or times. Well, she expected something similar as the black-suits that showed up on her doorstep after her divorce, just not from doctors and nurses.

Speaking of doors, the one to her room must've been faulty, because after the doctor closed the door after himself and the nurses, it bounced up, just a crack, but enough for Elle to hear beyond the door.

"Well, I checked her memory as much as I could, but it's still a very big chance that the explosion's radiation, and the stuff she was bathing in, did something to her brain, so I can't say that she remember the events leading to her injuries." There was a spiteful tone in his voice.

"You are yet to be cleared for that level of information."

"_Not cleared_? I have a patient whose blood and eyes glows in the dark, and you wont even tell me if its contagious or let me opt out from being near her!"

"It's classified information and if you insist on being belligerent, we will take steps to minimize the security leak. And you volunteered when you realized that another doctor would be in your place."

"Only because you'd lock me up as a security leak anyway."

"Either way, we wish to speak with the patient."

A sadistic note entered the doctor's voice, the kind that said 'ha-ha, now I'm in charge' yet with enough malice to not be gloating. "She's not cleared for interrogation until tomorrow. Head-trauma and all that. And her name's Elle Murphy."

"Very well, we will postpone her interrogation until tomorrow morning." Their voices grew distant as they walked away.

Elle let out a breath she didn't know she held. She had a feeling that she was in deep trouble. She just didn't know how deep.

* * *

Agent "Smith" wouldn't frown or react no matter how many times she protested. He would just sit there, in his protective suit, droning on and on and on. "The hallucinogenic drugs were an unfortunate side-effect of the bombs, and of unknown make, that is why I must wear this."

"I guess it was a giant hallucinogenic hand that punched through my living room wall, then," Elle snarled at him, having had this circle-logic argument for at least two hours now. _It was all a mass illusion made up of thousands of peoples' minds! We're fucked if this is the best lie our government can come up with!_

"Hostility is not conductive to this interview." Agent Smith couldn't understand it. Everyone else who he talked to pretty much jumped at the explanation, finding solace to have the inexplicable explained in easy, non-threatening terms. But this... girl stubbornly held onto the truth like a terrier with a bone. It was almost as if she _could_ handle the truth without blowing the figurative fuse in her brain.

Which made her a dangerous liability. Fortunately when they checked up on her, they found her to be a secret agent wife, as in someone who could keep secrets. "I see that you will not be persuaded."

"Damn straight!" She would never, ever forget watching a soul fizzle out in front of her eyes. "I wont tell anyone, if that's what you want."

"Not even your husband?" he challenged.

Her eyes went impossibly wide, and she laughed uncertainly. "What husband?"

"James Blake, CIA," he reminded her.

"He's not my husband, he's my ex-husband, we divorced half a year ago and now he's not allowed within a mile of me or my residence. Not that it's stopped him." Her fingers moved to a scar.

Agent Smith's frown deepened with each word. "According to all databases, you are still married to him and he does not have a record of anything except underage drunk driving." He watched as she paled, fear finally finding its place on her face.

"He wiped-! Call my divorce lawyer, Adam Rogers, it was a nasty divorce so he should remember it!" Elle pleaded.

Agent Smith intended to do just that. If this slip of a Silicon Valley girl was right, then they not only have giant alien robots to hide, but a rouge CIA agent to apprehend.

As he was about to leave, the girl spoke again, this time without prompting. "Be careful, James is very violent and clever."

"Noted." He took another step when her voice, very quiet and full of desperate hope whispered to him.

"The... hallucination next to me. Did it survive?" She knew the answer, but she didn't know the limitations of the robots.

Sometimes, Agent Smith hated his job. "It's your imagination, you tell me."

* * *

Twenty years old and already having been in so much trouble. It took FBI's technicians several months to retrieve the data that had been altered and erased. Agent Smith didn't even know that she was an orphan before, or that she'd spent almost three months combined in hospital due to her ex-husband.

Yeah, Rogers had remembered her well, mentioning that Blake was a narcissistic megalomaniac ("In strictly non-slanderous terms," he carefully added after his outburst), who was not just after controlling Elle, but the fortune she would inherit at twenty-one, and looking at all the complaints (not the confirmed ones, because none of his local police force believed the complaints against the man waving CIA identification in their faces), he was a piece of work if even half were true. Like murdering Elle's puppy in front of her as punishment for being late.

Once they got her full hospital history, they also found a miscarriage, and thinking about where her scar was, Agent Smith was willing to bet that a pen-knife was involved.

And he had thought her little more than a living Barbie doll. He sighed, he was old, and things like this were peppered throughout his professional life, but it really hit home when the victim was so pathetic and small (he conveniently forgot her steely mind, like most humans, he made a fantasy and stuck to it, just like the hallucinogenic story he gave the victims).

Well, at least he'd helped her out now, even as they lost track of Blake, the change of identity and location should have been enough.

He opened his front door, only to see fireworks as something pressed against his neck.

* * *

Twenty-two-year-old Elle Edel was happy. Her blood no longer glowed in the dark, she had a new life as a mechanic near Hollywood (stubbornly telling herself that it had nothing to do with the inexplicable camaraderie she'd felt towards the giant robot she watched die), and many new friends. For the first time since she was sixteen, she was content.

"Freaking bubble-wrap!" A scream came from within the shop, and Elle laughed as Sally scuffled outside, wrapped head-to-toe in the stuff.

"Stop laughing and get it off me! I swear Bobby wraps it up just so that this happens!" Sally huffed.

Elle's laughter stopped, but the corners of her mouth twitched suspiciously. "I'm sure he does." She reached out to help Sally get a hand free from the tangled mess.

"Why do we even use bubble-wrap? Hey, is that your phone?" Sally asked as she started to tear at the plastic with her freed hands.

"I don't know and yes it is." Elle abandoned Sally for her phone. "Hello, Edel speaking."

There was a pause, and she spoke again. "Hello?" She could hear someone breathe.

"Probably a prank," Sally said as she had to remove her shoes to get the wrap off her legs.

Elle was about to agree when the person on the other end spoke. "My Elle." She froze.

* * *

He'd lost count on how many Decepticons that had attacked him since the separation from his brother. All he knew was that they were a damned nuisance between him, and his destination. Finally, he spotted the planet his leader had spoken of, and promptly groaned. It was all... organic and stuff! Well, at least it wasn't one of those gas giants he passed on the way. Mentally, he braced himself because if he was right (and he was _always_ right), entry into that atmosphere was going to hurt. A lot.

But it would be all worth it, as he could sense his twin waiting beneath a blanket of clouds.

* * *

"Calm down!" Al of Honest Al's Automobiles yelled over his colleague on the phone, but she was still frantic as hell. "_Sally!_"

Finally she slowed into some kind of hiccups. "It was awful! And the police wont do anything and she's only got that old truck and he'll catch her! I told her to go to you and get a better car and- I gotta go, the officer wants to speak to me. Promise me that you'll help her. If that guy catches her she's dead."

"If anyone else asked..." Al sighed. "Alright, I got a car that should do it, but it'll be a big loss to me."

"I'll custom paint as many cars as you like if you do it."

"I've got two that needs some touching up."

"Deal! She'll be at your place early tomorrow."

* * *

"And then I-" The giant, silver robot came to a stop as a glow emerged from within his chest. The soldier he was talking to on the walkway looked concerned.

"Sideswipe, sir? You alright?"

But Sideswipe didn't hear him as his outer shell grew hot. Then, large patches of cherry red started to appear, and somewhere else an alarm went off, but everyone around Sideswipe stared at the previously silver, now a metallic cherry red, transformer.

"Hey, tha's mean tha's Sunny's 'ere!" A cheer came from a corner.

* * *

"Come on you piece of junk, don't die on me now!" Elle pleaded as a strange noise erupted from the engine. Fortunately, it wasn't dying yet. Periodically, she glanced in the mirrors, but didn't dare to relax even as the road was deserted behind her.

Then her phone rang, and she refused to answer it. Refused to give away her location. But it just wouldn't stop, and with dread, she realized that this was James hunting her. James probably only needed for the phone to ring to find her location.

Grabbing the phone, she chucked it out the window. Never noticing the thin wires leading to a GPS unit beneath her seat.

* * *

Sunstreaker didn't mind the heat as his colorless silver form shifted into yellow gold. No, this meant that he was close enough to his brother for their sparks to resonate. For their sparks to get strong enough again to waste energy on bright colors and vanity shine.

It felt good, and somewhere in the back of his mind, the bond strengthened to a point when he felt his brother's giddiness. But there was a problem. No matter how many times he tried, he couldn't find his sense of direction as his navigational systems had been damaged during his descent. He would have to lay low until either the Autobots found him, or his navigation repaired itself sufficiently.

* * *

Major Lennox had learned a great many things about hanging out with transformers, one of them is getting the hell out of the way if one of them was in a rush, and Sideswipe was in a rush. Nearly trampling ten newbies on the way too.

"What happened with his paint-job?" Epps questioned as Sideswipe transformed and disappeared into a cloud of dust.

"I have no idea. Either way, we're following him. Suit up, and bring a few newbies too. They could use the experience."

"Right, everyone round up and get ready to roll!" Epps grinned at the slightly terrified newbies.

* * *

Honest Al, or more locally known as Dishonest Al, might have cried when he realized that he would effectively give away one of his most expensive and rarest cars, but then he remembered his own childhood, with his own father beating his mother, and he decided that it was for a good cause. Besides, a custom paint job from Sally usually doubled the interest in a car, so maybe he wouldn't lose too much on this deal.

Still, the thought that this petite girl could lift and work on engines nearly broke his brain. Elle Edel was _tiny_! And not just tiny as in thinner than him (not a very hard accomplishment, he realized while proudly stroking his rotund stomach), but as in being the very definition of petite.

Well, to each their own.

"You must understand that this car will probably go faster than any other car you've driven before, so be careful with the speed limits," he warned her as they walked through the lot.

"Thank you so much for doing this," Elle said after a pause and looking around in paranoia. "I will be as careful as I can."

"Don't mention it." Seriously, or he might start to cry. "Well, here it is." He narrowed his eyes and checked the papers again. Alright, so some idiot couldn't see the difference between gold and brown. He was going to have a word with Peter about checking his eyesight.

"It's wonderful," Elle breathed, and he was startled by her sudden change of mood.

Turning towards her, he nearly dropped the papers on the ground. _Her eyes are glowing_. Her eyes were actually _glowing_ as she stroked the hood of the car. Something was clearly more out of the ordinary than he initially thought.

* * *

To say that Sunstreaker went online with a shock would be an understatement. No, it wasn't that he now had grubby fingerprints all over his hood (though that might come later), and it wasn't the fact that he'd just been brought.

No, it was the strange spark-signature being emitted from the small human who settled herself inside him. At least she wasn't a Pretender, as a quick, amateurish (Ratchet would have his hide for being so sloppy!) scan showed (besides, it would be stupid of her to get inside him if she was, as a simply transformation would destroy her).

In fact, he might have been a bit too far into shock, as he didn't realize what was happening until they were half a mile down the road.

Feeling his bond with Sideswipe grow stronger, he decided that maybe he could stick around until he figured out what the slag was going on, since they were going in the right direction anyway.

* * *

It was strange, but the moment she settled into the car it was as if all her fear had been banished. She felt invincible. Unstoppable. It was as if a limb had been restored to her. There was no learning curve, no hesitant movements as she raced down the road.

_Faster... Faster...Faster... Faster..._

* * *

"We lost him," Epps reported as they boarded the plane. "Gone like a roadrunner from a coyote."

"Lets just hope that he wont run into trouble," Major Lennox said as they settled beside Optimus.

Right around then, the alarms went off. **"Decepticon signal detected! Decepticon signal detected!"**

* * *

Sally jumped out before the police car fully stopped. She had finally managed to convince the officer that things were a bit more grave than the usual ex-husband riot. "Hey Al, did you help Elle?" She frowned when no one answered and then hurried into the shop. "Al?"

Something was _wrong_. She peered over the counter.

And screamed.

A minute later, the officer called for back up while trying to calm a woman who'd seen her uncle's slit throat.

* * *

He saw the golden car in the distance and smirked. She was an idiot if she didn't realize that she was making a beeline for her adoptive father's old mansion. Well, panicked horses always run into their stables, even if the stables were caught on fire.

He laughed. Maybe he'd let her run away again and hunt her down. It certainly was a fun game!

* * *

Sunstreaker didn't feel so good. It was almost as if he'd consumed thrice his body weight in energon and was totally buzzed, yet with his navigational systems being a bit patchy, a sense of vertigo took over, and he could only helplessly be driven down the road, unable to think any coherent thought.

* * *

Sideswipe felt his brother's approach, but then he felt something else that made him quicken his speed. _Decepticon!_

* * *

The invincibility she felt evaporated as fast as it had come as the CIA vehicle came up beside her car. With a demented grin, James used his larger car in an effort to push her off the road.

* * *

Racing after the Autobot and CIA vehicle, Barricade made ready to hand out his first speeding ticket. Oh how he would enjoy it. Especially since offing one twin meant offing the other.

* * *

"Sir, we've located Sideswipe, we'll have visual confirmation in ten minutes."

"Good," Optimus hummed, mentally going over his weapons' system.

* * *

James swerved away, and Elle nearly breathed a sigh of relief before he hit Sunstreaker's side just as a red car came flying towards them from the front. The hit forced James, Elle and Sunstreaker off the road, letting the red car pass.

Barricade caught up and transformed. Sideswipe doing likewise.

Then all hell broke loose.

**End of 001**

* * *

_So what do you think? Would you like a continuation of Elle's story or should I scrap it? If I continue, the Transformers' roles will radically expand in the second chapter and onwards. This was just an introductory chapter._

_Oh, and sorry to everyone who are waiting for updates on my other stories. I know that I have at least one complete BDT chapter on an external hard drive somewhere. I just have to find it._


	2. Lawful Chaotic

_Thanks so much for all the reviews and favorites! Here's the second chapter, which could pretty much be summed up with Elle is an idiot, giant robot fight, someone invokes the "At least it can't get worse"._

_Also, out of (dis)respect to the female/male ratio of the Transformers movies that survive and do something. Arcee survived ROTF. Yes, I might be a little pissed about that one. Also, due to confusion as to Arcee being three separate 'bots or not, she is one robot with a split mind in this story, hence using "We" when not combined into one large Arcee. She's also extremely hard to kill as her spark automatically transfers to any of her functioning units should you destroy one._

_Oh, and the titular law makes full appearance in this chapter. To ridiculous extents._

* * *

**Murphy's Law**

_002_

Lawful Chaotic

_"As expected from the idiot who runs _towards_ the giant... illusions," Agent Smith said with a smirk as he stopped Elle's wheelchair getaway. Elle stuck out her tongue at him. He only chuckled. "Just promise me that you'll run in the opposite direction next time there's a problem, and we can take a short walk in the hospital garden."_

_"You're never going to give me a break about that one are you? I was high on adrenaline and I'm nineteen, twenty in a few months, I know that I fucked up."_

_"Running towards explosions are bit more than just fucked up, though. Hopefully next time you wont apply game strategies to real life."_

_Then the scenery changed, and she sat in front of Sally and Sally's collie, as they watched TV. Suddenly Sally spoke. "Hey, what's the stupidest thing you've ever done?"_

_"Marriage," Elle gave a very definite answer._

_"You're married?" Sally was surprised._

_"Was. We had a conflict of interests. I wanted to live. He didn't want me to."_

Elle groaned as she slowly woke up, and fumbled with her seat-belt, only to find it releasing itself. She then fumbled with the handle of the door, only to have the door open itself. "I'm officially crazy now," she mumbled and stumbled out of the car, before sharp pain in her right leg made her fall down. _Sorry, Agent Smith, I wont be running in the opposite direction of this fight._

At least James was out of commission, his car upside-down and his head lolled forward in unconsciousness.

* * *

"Stand still and let me kill you!" Sideswipe roared as Barricade dodged his blades. This close to Sunstreaker, Sideswipe was starting to feel his twin's vertigo and sluggishness as well, and sometimes he nearly saw two Barricades attack him.

Sideswipe hated to admit it, but he might not roll out of this battle unscathed.

A fist to the face later confirmed his conclusions. Though he would make sure to give as good as he got.

* * *

Sunstreaker felt his twin's increasing fear and fought against the fog in his mind. It was clearing slightly since the human got out, but at this rate, Sideswipe would die. With a final mammoth effort, he forced himself to react, forced his body to transform.

* * *

"Uh huh," one of the soldiers, the one in charge of keeping contact with NEST's base, said before reporting to Major Lennox. "Apparently there's a large group of law enforcement vehicles heading to the same location as us."

"What? Why?" Their destination was in a completely deserted area, there was no reason why anyone would have called in an disturbance.

"Apparently a murderer and his victim should be in the area."

"You're kidding!"

"No. We've also confirmed two air-crafts going in the same direction. They wont answer to any radio contact and are believed to be seekers." And that meant Megatron and Starscream.

Lennox groaned. They _really_ didn't need any more complications right now. Then a newbie tried to cheer him up.

"Look at the bright side, sir, at least things can't get any worse."

Just as the newbie finished speaking, the radio guy spoke again. "And according to the geological institute, there should be an earthquake at our destination within the next hour." Glares were pointed at the newbie.

Then Lennox threw his hands in the air. "Great, what are the odds? Don't answer! It was a rhetorical question!" He pointed at the vehicles who started to calculate the answer.

"Does it make you feel better that the odds are significantly higher because of our presence attracting transformers, being near a major fault line increases the risk of earthquakes, and, well, lots of people gets murdered every year?" Arcee asked in a too innocent voice.

"Funnily enough, it does not." At the moment, Lennox was expecting the radio guy to report that a large city had been constructed at the destination, if only just to mess with him. Anyway, he had to do damage control. Turning towards the radio guy, he said, "Contact the police and tell them to put up a roadblock three miles from the location and that we'll apprehend the murderer. Autobots!" He turned towards the vehicles. "We have at least one human victim, and one human perpetrator at the scene. Try to keep them safe and separated, and do not let them escape. Our mission has changed from exterminating Decepticons and rescue to one of simply rescue and getting the hell out of dodge before the earthquake hits. Understood?"

There were some grumbles, but Optimus spoke for them all. "Understood."

"Right, we're less than a minute away now, so be prepared!"

Epps tried to cheer Lennox up, this time without challenging fate. "Hey, isn't this what we signed up for? Unexpected events upon unexpected events?"

"Yeah, but I thought Mother Nature would at least cut me some slack."

"We're stationed in earthquake country."

"Right, that was stupid. Okay, I expected local law enforcement to cut me some slack."

"Really?"

"Okay, okay," Major Lennox protested with a smile. "I expect the sky to fall down and crush us all. Happy?"

* * *

Elle had always been able to handle traumatic or hard to understand events of her life by disassociation. Basically, by refusing to feel or think too much by the events in question, treating it like a malfunctioning toaster that only needed to be replaced, something that happened once and then was over with. Two times, this method failed her, early in her marriage with James, and later, with the giant, dying robot. No matter what she did, she couldn't forget, and therefore most of her therapy was spent working on getting over that hurdle.

But the third time's the charm, and watching the car that she had driven, a car that she had relied on, unfold into a giant robot, she could no longer disassociate herself with the situation. So she did the next best thing; closed her eyes, covered her ears, and hoped for everything to be over with really quick.

Sunstreaker only paid enough attention to the human as not to step on her as he forced himself to his feet. His brother was in a pretty desperate situation right now, and Sunstreaker wasn't about to let Barricade play around anymore. "Hey, Deceptiscum!"

Barricade snarled and turned to check on Sunstreaker while holding Sideswipe down. It was all Sideswipe needed and Barricade roared in pain as a blade burrowed deeply into his shoulder-joint. A kick later and Sideswipe was released.

Their heads were clearing much faster now, and they gave identical grins. "Ready?" Sideswipe asked.

"Ready." Sunstreaker's blades snapped into place.

Barricade barely had time to dodge the first thrust, firing blindly at them in an effort to distance himself from the very deadly duo. It wasn't working very well, and not for the first time, Barricade cursed Megatron's stupid divide and conquer plan. Especially as Megatron and Starscream ditched him for being too slow. Hopefully they would show up before Barricade would have to reattach his head to his body.

"Think fast!" Sunstreaker spun and sliced and Barricade stumbled.

"Got him!" Sideswipe, well, swiped low with his blade, catching the back of Barricade's right knee.

Then their verbal communication ended and Barricade felt like someone poured ice in his processor as the twins found their rhythm of battle again. Slice, turn, dodge, shoot. It felt like he was being torn apart by a hurricane. The twins were _back_ and they weren't happy.

Fortunately, around that second, help arrived as Megatron and Starscream dived and transformed. But Barricade's relief was momentary as military air-craft, the kind that tended to drop Autobots, also arrived.

"Don't you _dare_!" Megatron hissed as Barricade nearly followed his instincts in getting the hell out of there.

As much as Barricade loathed Megatron, he feared him more than the Autobots.

"Concentrate on one of them, if one goes down, so does the other!" Megatron ordered.

"Yes, sir!" Starscream and Barricade went to work, but it was difficult as the twins absolutely refused to be separated. If you blasted one, another blasted back, making it effectively impossible to concentrate fire power on only one.

Up in the air, everyone were scrambling as the latches opened.

Major Lennox motioned to Optimus, "Okay, Big Guy, you go first, followed by Ironhide. Arcee, I'm counting on you and Epps to get the civilians out of the way. The rest jump whenever you can without hitting someone else. Gogogo!"

Machinery groaned and then the truck rolled out. A few transformations and parachutes later, he was speeding straight into Megatron. Soon, Ironhide followed, blasting at Starscream. This was sufficiently distracting for Epps and the three Arcee units to speed through. Once he got a visual, he thanked whatever stars there were that he wasn't sent to mop the girl's squished remains. She sat huddled in possibly the second worst location in the entire area, only the fact that the robots who walked over were the twins, and not the Decepticons, had saved her from a very undignified death.

The blue and pink Arcee, the former carrying Epps, stopped beside the girl.

"Hey, you can't stay here, get on the pink bike and we'll take you to safety!" Epps prompted as he jumped off. He frowned as she didn't answer, or even move. "Okay, you need to wake up!" He shook her slightly, but she only closed her eyes tighter. "Now you're being childish," he joked gently.

"We don't have time for this!" the pink Arcee declared and transformed, scooping up the girl in her arms. "We'll carry her to safety this way if she wont listen."

"Yeah, well, it's a long way to go with your arms occupied," Epps pointed out as one of Barricade's shots just about missed them.

Arcee knew it, and turned towards the near catatonic girl in her arms. "Listen, you have to step up and face reality. We're going set you down, transform, then you'll climb on and hold on for your life and we'll do the rest. Do you understand?"

Slowly, the girl nodded, and Arcee was satisfied, setting down the girl who bit back a whimper as her right foot made contact with the ground.

"Easy, there," Epps steadied the girl while Arcee transformed. Then, as if the girl was a robot herself, she got on, knuckles whitening as she held onto the handles. Satisfied that she wouldn't fall off, Epps called, "Go, Arcee!"

"You don't have to tell us," Arcee said, a 'grin' in her voice as her engine revved and the pink motorcycle flew away, weaving between the legs on the combatants. Epps then turned towards the blue unit. "Have you spotted the other civilian?"

"Our red unit have found a man in a vehicle. But we do not think he is a civilian, his decals declare CIA membership." Arcee was silent as Epps got on, searching for something. Finally she spoke. "This vehicle was stolen two years ago by former Agent James Blake. He is currently main suspect in in four murders, seven assaults along with several non-violent but severe crimes such as cracking and altering the CIA and FBI databases. He is a trained killer. We suggest you approach with caution and without a loaded weapon."

"In this situation I'm _not_ letting go of my weapons," Epps firmly said as they were nearly stepped on by Ironhide, who told them to keep out of his way. "Still, he sounds like a piece of work."

"He is a danger to humanity. We ask for permission to eliminate him."

"'Fraid not. This is the US and even if they're scumbags, they have a right to a fair trial."

"We-" Suddenly Arcee shuddered.

"Arcee?" Epps became worried that maybe she needed more repairs since her last run in with a giant cannon and bomb.

"We are being energized. _A lot_." Arcee managed to say through static. "Too much!"

"By what?"

"The girl!"

Epps turned his head, and stared as sparks crackled down the girls body and into the pink Arcee as soldiers tried to separate her from the bike without injuring themselves. And he wasn't the only one who noticed.

"Energon!" Megatron's triumphant roar seemed to be the signal for all out chaos.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker just about managed to place themselves between Starscream and the rest as Optimus intercepted Megatron's grab for the girl. Ironhide threw what little caution he had to the wind and brought out the big guns against Barricade. One of the newbie soldiers that had hung back, the one that Epps remembered bragging about his martial arts like he was the next Bruce Lee, stepped forward and pressed the girl's neck, making her slump and loosen her hold on Arcee, allowing the soldiers to separate them. Arcee seemed to recover speedily from the overload and soon he found himself beside the stolen CIA vehicle.

Lennox, meanwhile, fired at Starscream, distracting the jet enough so that the twins got in a good hit, before his communication link came with bad news. "Major, you should pull out _now_! The earthquake is going to hit and it's going to be _big_!" Lennox replied that he heard before issuing his orders. "Pull out, pull out!"

"Lets go!" Sideswipe grabbed his brother's shoulder, and they shot at Starscream one last time, using the distraction to transform. To Sunstreaker's surprise, Sideswipe stopped and opened his door for the human who had ordered them to pull out, before they raced away.

Epps and Arcee took one last glance at the upside-down armored vehicle before they too decided to escape. There was no way they would be able to survive two flying Decepticons in the middle of a large earthquake while hacking away at that shell. They passed Optimus who just about managed to punch Megatron hard enough to get some distance to transform and drive away.

Ironhide stood for the final distraction, and with a grin, he let loose, explosion after explosion erupting around the Decepticons, the Topkick practically flying out of the inferno as the ground started to shake and rumble.

The waiting planes were already driving down the road to take off as he boarded, and the asphalt was cracking from the vibrations, then as the worst of the quaking started, they were airborne. "That's what I call fun!"

It was around this time that Barricade and Starscream called it quits, transforming and escaping what was left of the flames and the shaking earth. Megatron soon followed, but he wasn't as angry with the cowards as he would have been. No, he had just found something _really_ interesting.

Back in the plane, disorder reigned as soldiers tried to sit as far away as possible from the glowing, and possibly radioactive, girl. She was blissfully oblivious, sleeping in a corner like a baby.

"What are we supposed to do with her?" one of the soldiers asked Lennox.

"We'll see what the doctors back at base say," Lennox answered. He then turned towards Optimus. "Did you know that could happen?"

"It surprised us too that a human is emitting the same type of energy that energon does," Optimus answered. "I cannot tell you why, perhaps we should ask Ratchet when we get back."

"Energon is the stuff that made the machines come to life, right? This plane wont suddenly decide to dump us or anything?" Lennox asked as he massaged his shoulder.

"I don't know," was the unwanted reply.

It's was around then that Epps approached them. "Sorry, I couldn't get the murderer out of the car before we had to split. We've radioed the police to go and get him and someone from base will be waiting when they bring him in."

"Did he even survive?" Lennox wondered aloud. "Ironhide got a bit trigger happy towards the end."

"Bah, if I don't want to hit something I wont. Rest assured that your criminal will face the full mercy of your justice system," Ironhide growled. "Though why you worry about someone who could be Megatron's favorite pet human is beyond me."

"Land of liberty and justice. It's not my fault the French sent the statue over." Lennox shrugged with a crooked smile.

"You Americans always blame the French, don't you?" one of the Polish soldiers joked. "_Freedom fries,_ anyone?"

"What can I say, we used to hang out with England a lot." Lennox answered and was relieved as the adrenaline rush started to give way to relieved hilarity amongst the troops. Hopefully they hadn't scared the newbies too much. Especially since NEST went international any reports back to their countries needed to read something like _fought Decepticon, I don't think Autobots wants to take over the world, say hi to the kids for me_.

Of course, and his eyes fell to the girl, there were bigger problems to think about. From what he knew of energon, it was literally the Cybertronian Elixir of Life. Without it, transformers would slowly rust and go senile like Jetfire, and the only thing they knew could create it was the All Spark, which was destroyed. Oh, and energon was also needed for new transformers to be created so Lennox had a feeling that this girl would become very hot commodity if she happened to be the source of the energy.

* * *

Sunstreaker couldn't understand it, here he was, crammed into a dead machine far too small for transformers, and all around him the Autobots, including his own brother, were joking and laughing with these inferior flesh-bags. He could understand Optimus Prime not wanting to kill them, even giving a token gesture of friendship, but now he was actually in a deep discussion with a human, young even by their standards, about frivolous things such as video games. They even debated the use of different characters in arcade games (a term he had to look up in the ever buzzing air of low-tech communications around him), and it didn't sound like he was humoring him!

The human that had ridden his brother (Sunstreaker shuddered, remembering his helplessness at the girl's hands), now sat in Ironhide (and Ironhide didn't even threaten to blast him to smithereens!), talking about taking someone named Sarah and Annabelle (human names, Sunstreaker noted) on some sort of outing. Even Arcee was half-arguing, half-flirting with a group (if you could count them drooling over her alt-modes and her playfully suggesting a few others as flirting). It was almost as if the Autobots were approaching the humans on an equal level!

Suddenly he was smacked in the side by Sideswipe's door, and he snapped. "If that scratches, you're the one repainting it!"

You've been sulking for a while now, what's your problem? came Sideswipe's voice through their bond as he closed his door again.

Oh, nothing except being at the mercy of a bunch of primitive primates! Do they even know how to land this thing without assistance?

Give them a chance. Sure, they emit oils and water and can't keep their hands to themselves, Sideswipe cheerfully pointed out the things that would make Sunstreaker shudder, but they're also _really_ good at cleaning and washing. And if you're nice, they might give you a wash. The talk about washing was accompanied by an extremely pleasant memory.

You're letting them ride around in you because they stimulate your touch receptors? Wasn't that some kind of reverse prostitution or something?

Nope, but it's a perk! Besides, if you can't work with humans, you wont be getting on any battlefields anytime soon. This was also accompanied by memories, some filled with frustration, some with triumph, some even with startling happiness.

At the last emotion, Sunstreaker completely withdrew from the conversation.

* * *

If Starscream didn't believe that Megatron's long, frozen captivity might've scrambled his circuits before, he definitely did now. Having dabbled in science before the war, including the differences with technological and organic species, he could definitely say that Megatron was a crazy idiot if he hoped to extract Energon Protocols from a human brain. Glancing at the recharge berth to his left, he found Barricade in a similar state of dumb disbelief, and _he_ had never researched organic species, merely living undercover amongst them for a couple of cycles.

Of course, when Megatron announced the discovery of Energon Protocols to rally troops that had... _ceased_ to report after his temporary death, he had conveniently left out that they were buried inside an organic life-form, something that definitely would have made scientists turn their backs to the project, and with them, others who were smart enough to realize that if even Scalpel declared it a fool's errand, it wasn't worth doing. In fact, when Scalpel accessed Sam Witwicky's mind, he had also tried to access the All Spark's Energon Protocols, only to find data so completely corrupted by memories that it was useless.

_Yes, but Sam Witwicky never energized anyone, did he?_ With a start, Starscream sat up. Of course, the Protocols, without the overwhelming presence of the rest of the All Spark's data, would have a higher survival rate. They would have higher priority and a lesser chance of being overwritten. But that didn't negate the fact that the vessel, in this case, the human, was organic and unable to execute the proper commands to use them, while at the same time the human being the only one possible to use the Protocols because you couldn't extract them without killing the human and thus erasing the Protocols, which went around into a circular logic of a black hole.

No, all this discovery meant was hope that would inevitably turn into despair. Unless... Well, he would need to contact Thundercracker and Skywarp if he wanted to do something about it.

Meanwhile Barricade was coming to a very different conclusion.

* * *

Bad news met them the moment Sunstreaker and the girl were confiscated by Ratchet and Dr. Blyde (Or Hatchet and Hyde, as the fearsome duo were sometimes called). The first was expected, that the HQ couldn't keep tabs on the Decepticon signals all the way back to Decepticon HQ. The second was that somehow, when the police got to the location of the battle, the CIA vehicle and its driver had mysteriously disappeared.

"We told you that he should have been eliminated," Arcee said to Epps. She had a very simple view on justice: You kill someone who killed others. Granted, she had grown up at war so maybe her sense of justice might've been a bit clouded.

"Would that have happened to an Autobot?" Epps tiredly asked, trying to put it in her context.

"Assuming the same crimes as this man, without someone overriding his consciousness and simply using his body? Yes. While we gives Autobots a bit more considerations than Decepticons, the crimes of this man far exceeds what most Decepticons have to their name."

"Even Starscream?" Epps jibed, invoking the Decepticon they tended to invoke when Megatron was overkill.

"Seekers are different than all other transformers for their war crimes. Starscream, as a commander, even more so." Arcee paused. "Especially when he sacrificed his own soldiers for one mission, up to and including his brother's sanity."

"Starscream has an insane brother?" Epps really didn't like the sound of that.

"He has two brothers, Skywarp, who went insane, and Thundercracker," Arcee's voice turned malevolent, "who I'll personally scrap. But I suppose as far as seekers go," seekers being bloodthirsty super-soldiers, of course, "Thundercracker is... _reasonable_." Whatever her personal vendetta, she identified a lack of malice not characteristic of seekers. "The three fly together, so we were very surprised to learn that Starscream was without them on Earth."

"Maybe they're dead?"

"No. Our teams do not have roosters capable of taking on both of them. You would need someone capable of stopping Skywarp's teleportation and also take on Thundercracker's aerobatics, and they were online just before we entered Earth's atmosphere."

"Maybe Megatron-"

"Then Starscream would be dead as well. If not preemptively by Megatron's hand, but while avenging them. Seekers that fly together are loyal to no one else, and therefore the loyalty runs deep enough that not even death stops it."

"So that's it! Megatron split them up in order for their loyalties not to be compromised." Epps snapped his fingers. "He wouldn't like Starscream running off to help Thundercracker while watching Megatron's back."

"Megatron is unlikely to turn his back to any seeker, but your idea is sound. If an independent unit of seekers rise within the Decepticons, they can command loyalty unlike any other transformer."

"So seekers are really the top dogs?" Epps knew the math, that one seeker, unless up against Optimus or Megatron, could easily take on two enemies at once. The thought of three seekers with even half the cooperation of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker? He could definitely understand other Decepticons looking up to them.

"Seekers were equipped to, in small groups, explore the universe for energon or harvest-ready suns, including defending themselves should they come up against hostile aliens. Even if the hostile aliens were an army. Their reprogramming to Decepticon alignment simply honed those skills." Arcee didn't want to admit it, but as long as the Decepticons had monopoly on seekers, the Autobots were likely to lose the war. Especially if the errant seekers such as Skywarp, Thundercracker, Thrust, Dirge, Ramjet, Sunstorm... The list just went on. Anyway, if Megatron started to call them to Earth, Earth would be lost.

But he would never do that, because he would lose his Cybertronian territories and Earth was just insignificant, just an organic ball of mud in the edge of an inconsequential galaxy, without the All Spark.

Unless, of course, energon were to appear. Her optics flickered towards the med bay. This time Megatron would have time to summon his best soldiers, this time, maybe Earth wouldn't be as lucky as it have been.

On the other hand, if they found energon, the transformers could count themselves lucky, but for some reason, Arcee didn't feel lucky. _Blast it! I'm getting too attached to the natives of this planet! Curse them and their ever-open bonding channels! _Even as she thought it, she couldn't help the swell of affection her spark emitted as some of the soldiers roughhoused over the last chocolate bar in the vending machine.

"Beauty before age!"

"You wont be beautiful when I'm done with you!"

With a mechanical sigh, blue Arcee stepped forward. "Seeing as we're both, we're confiscating this until you learn how to share." She snatched the colorfully wrapped sweet from them, ignoring their laughing protests.

* * *

Sunstreaker could hear the laughter as Ratchet was preparing his tools, though he was more occupied by the fact that humans and transformers shared a med bay. Okay, so the humans' half of the room was elevated and walled with detachable walls and roofs, but it still was the same room in his opinion! Furthermore, as Sideswipe followed inside to wait, he noticed his twin absentmindedly lifting human equipment to the human area, picking up and putting down one of the human nurses instead of having her walk all the stairs down, and all this with the same fluidity that he would fight at Sunstreaker's side with.

And he wasn't the only one. Skids and Mudflap suddenly appeared, babbling incoherently with a bunch of humans on their hands, only for Ironhide to appear, clock them (all the while, they made sure not to drop or squeeze the humans in the split second that their processors paused), take and put down the humans, and drag the troublesome twins off to the gun range.

One of the humans that had arrived looked up towards Ratchet. "Well, we're here, what's the delicate wiring your radioed about?"

It only took Sunstreaker half a second to realize what it meant. "Oh no!" He cut off Ratchet before Ratchet could answer. "You're _not_ putting dirty little humans in my shell!"

"Sunny!" Sideswipe snapped, knowing from personal experience just how important first impressions were with humans. Sure, you could snap and growl and insult them, but that's only _after_ they'd bonded somewhat with you. Then they wouldn't think you meant it (sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse, Epps better get his vacuum cleaner ready).

"Well, if the patient disagrees." Ratchet's uncharacteristic compliance turned heads.

One of the humans winced. "Laser can opener?" It wasn't its real name, but it stuck after Ratchet had assisted Ensign Jones with a can of beans, which turned into a bean bomb. The human assistants spent two weeks picking beans from Ratchet's interior wiring. After a while the stench had sent even the most seasoned of doctors out of the med bay.

"Now, now, we will be using it as it's intended to be used this time."

For some reason, Sunstreaker didn't relax as Ratchet outfitted and calibrated a tool that could slice all the way through his armor and spark like butter.

"Well, better you than me," one of the insulted humans called to Sunstreaker before making for the stairs (before being picked up by Sideswipe and put down in the human med bay). If Sunny wouldn't play nice, they wouldn't either.

* * *

It smelled more like the workshop than a hospital, yet still like a hospital. Weird.

"Oh, it's you. What did you do this time? Drink refined fuel to see what havoc it can wreak on the human digestive system?"

"Actually, I'm here to report that Ensign Jones have had some discomfort in his fingers after touching the civilian girl. He, however, does not seem inclined to come here and have it checked out."

"That idiotic son of a malfunctioning _scooter_! We have _procedures_ when it comes to energon poisoning _for a reason_!" Shuffle, steps, clasp against clothed flesh. "Alright, I give you full permission to bring him here, with force if necessary. Actually, tell Arcee or Ironhide, _they_ should be able to force him out of whatever hole he's crawled into."

"Yes, sir!" came a rapid, if shaky, response. Then running.

Steps approaching. "Okay, I know you're awake. Heart monitor's giving it away."

She opened her eyes and blinked in surprise. Despite the fact that he'd lost weight and his black hair had gone gray, she recognized the wrinkled face above her. "Doctor Blyde?"

"Talk about going full circle, hm? I thought we solved your little glowing problem last time, Ms. Murphy."

**End of 002**

* * *

_Well, lets just hope that Ensign Jones gives in willingly or found a really deep hole. Either way his hearing will be shot by the time Hyde and Hatchet is through with him. Oh, and sorry about possible OoC-ness from the characters. I'm still trying to get a grip on them._

_And yes, I know that Ensign isn't used in the army, but since NEST is quite a unique operation (international, heck, intergalactic operation), I would suppose that they grabbed whatever loyal soldiers they could find who qualified, and who wouldn't rat them out. Hence, it's more about psychological and physiological evaluation rather than which group of the military you belong to._

_And yes, we'll learn about Sideswipe's hazing period._


	3. Patient and Problems

_Yeah, Elle was kind of out of it during last chapter. Hopefully she wont be as unconscious in this chapter._

_Anyway, the War of the Worlds incident mentioned in this chapter is a reference to the Orson Welles radio drama that was aired in 1938. Basically, people who listened allegedly believed that an alien invasion was underway and that they all were going to die._

* * *

**Murphy's Law**

_003_

Patient and Problems

If you asked, Ensign Jones would tell you that he wasn't afraid of doctors. He was afraid of _a_ doctor. One. Singular. In fact, he was pretty sure that Blyde was Dr. Jekyll's evil twin, hence the nickname, Hyde. Not that "Hyde" appreciated Jones' ingenious nicknaming skills, which only increased Jones' fear of the man. Which was why he had tried not to wince when his fingers, swollen and red, came into contact with things, but unfortunately one of Ratchet's (or Hatchet, as one of the thing binding the humans and bots together were the terrifying medical staff) assistants noticed. And now Jones was hiding out in an air vent, hoping that they would have forgotten him by lunch.

"It's true dat da girl 'ave energon?" He heard Skids and Mudflap walk by outside his hiding place.

"'Hide wouldn't say. Somethin' 'bout not gettin' 'head o' ourselves."

"Still, _if_ she does?"

"We'll 'ave 'Cepticons down our throats, 'cause all other energon sources 'ave dried up."

"Well, I hope she 'aves energon, 'cause I'm feelin' rusty."

"Not even energon can 'elp dat!" A clang as Mudflap smacked his twin for the insult.

Ensign Jones, as much as he liked the Autobots, hoped that the girl _did not_ have energon if Skids was right. They had barely even recovered from the last Decepticon attack on the base. Of course, in his moment of musings the covering of the air vent was removed and Jones found himself staring down at Ironhide. He tried to smile disarmingly. "Hi?"

* * *

Sunstreaker hadn't winced _much_ as Ratchet removed a section of golden armor to get at the damaged wiring. "It better not show when you're finished."

Ratchet gave him a withering glare. As if _he_ would be that sloppy! "If you refuse alternative treatment, you can live with the results."

Sunstreaker shut up and sulked. He then looked over to Sideswipe, and nearly shuddered (an action which would have put a needle straight into his spark chamber). Humans were climbing all over him, wiping away scorch marks and welding together minor blemishes. If Sunstreaker had read classical Earth novels, he would have likened it to the Lilliputians climbing all over Gulliver. But as Sunstreaker hadn't read Earth classics, he just thought it looked creepy.

Ew, there's one inside your armor! Sunstreaker noticed with disgust.

So you're talking to me now? Sideswipe wondered.

Why are you letting all those organics touch you?

They do a good job. Besides, you learn to trust them after a while. Sideswipe's answer nearly made Sunstreaker's processor fritz like Prowl's would have done.

It's inside you! Sunstreaker felt compelled to point out again.

_He_ is inside me to check that my wiring is in place.

Further conversation was cut short as Ironhide entered, the back of a jacket pinched between his fingers, and in the jacket a human was sulking as Ironhide set him down in the waiting area of the human med bay. "Don't leave without Dr. Blyde's orders. I'm _not_ hunting you down again."

Then he turned and sat down in the transformers area, a swarm of humans already moving towards him. Sunstreaker braced himself to duck the moment a human was stupid enough to touch the cannons.

* * *

"-And a minor concussion, but that's alright, not like you were using that organ anyway," Blyde finished as the nurses finished the brace around Elle's leg.

"Ha. Ha." Elle sarcastically laughed, annoyed that even with the mother of all sprains she needed to have support fitted to her leg. It always made her leg feel heavy and clumsy. "So when will I get out?"

"Out from this room? Three days at the very least, and that's in a wheelchair. You wont be putting any weight on that leg for at least two weeks, but you should be as new in six or so weeks if you're good, which," he pushed back his glasses and glared at her, "I _know_ you wont be, so lets say two or three months, depending on how stupid you will be."

Elle stuck out her tongue at him. It had been their blood-feud the last time she was in his care. She found hospital rooms positively boring places to escape from. He had warned her that she was playing with broken and shattered bones. She hadn't listened. He had to reset two bones in her leg afterward.

"At least you will be in plentiful company, considering the general population on this base. Speaking of which, I'm going to have to leave you for a while, don't miss me too much."

"I assure you that my heart will bleed tears of blood at the thought of us parting!" Elle overplayed.

"Just as long as you don't mess up the sheets, those beds are a pain to make." Blyde and the nurses left.

Elle huffed like a puffed up bird, glancing around her sugar cube of a room. No windows, and most of the machines had been shut off and placed against the walls when they figured that she didn't need them. There was a bucket of melting ice by her bed for her to dip her leg in from time to time if the swelling got worse, but she didn't want the cold just yet. Besides, she had more pressing matters to think about, such as the fact that unlike last time she glowed, this time she burned any exposed skin at contact if it wasn't her own.

It was as if the energy that made her glow was going outwards from her, rather than inwards like last time (Blyde had at one point joked about her drinking Radium instead of tea, except that if you didn't count a high fever, she had sustained no damage or after effects of the inside radiation).

Strange and a little worrying. At least Blyde assured her that she wasn't a cancer machine. More like she was cooking whatever meat she touched, so no hugging the cute marines, which just about defeated the purpose of being in a military base hospital. She rolled over to her side, trying to sleep.

Her stomach firmly protested. "Oh shut it, lunch's in an hour or so."

**Grumble! Clank! Grumble! Clank! Clank! Clank!**

"Okay, this is ridiculous!" Elle sat up, the sounds of something heavy metallic hitting the floor rhythmically outside her room, in combination with her stomach, was driving her up the walls. "Isn't hospitals supposed to be places for rest and recovery?"

No answer, only the sounds of machines, metals and people milling about outside. With a sigh, she glanced around for a clock, finding none, she shrugged. "Well, this will be the shortest time I've been a good patient."

With that, she slipped out of bed, careful not to put weight on her right leg. Then, by leaning on furniture and limp-jumping, she made her way towards the door. "See? Nothing to it!" She panted.

_Ugh, I feel dizzy. I really need to eat something._ She tried to blink away the black spots before slipping. She shrieked as her bad leg made contact with the floor, hands flying out to steady herself.

_**Bzapp!**_ A bright light flashed across her eyes and she sucked in her breath.

Then she felt the machine she was holding onto start to move. Disassembling and reassembling. Into a robot.

For one second, Elle and the robot stared at one another. Then the robot rushed at her, and by extension, the door. Elle screamed.

* * *

Ratchet paused in the middle of the wiring, and everyone turned their heads as a painful shriek pierced the air, some hurrying towards the source. Then another scream, one of terror, made the rest leap into action, only to watch as the door burst open as the girl they'd rescued stumbled out of the room, followed by a drone, whose sharp, spindly legs shot out to slice off the railing of the walkway behind her, forcing her to fall down onto the walkway beneath the drone.

It seemed like it was about to pierce her heart when Ironhide came to the rescue, blasting the tiny robot to pieces. Unfortunately, the blast sent the girl over the edge of the walkway.

"I got her!" Sideswipe just about caught her before falling to the floor. He slid a few feet before coming to a halt. "Hey, you okay?" he asked the whimpering girl in his palm.

Her whimpering was silenced as she looked up at him, her eyes widening. It was around that time sparks started to crackle around her exposed skin, and alarm bells rung inside Sideswipe's mind before the sparks traveled into his hand, through his arm, and to his spark chamber.

"Sideswipe!" he heard someone call out.

It felt like someone had taken the energy of refined or purified energon, concentrated it a few hundred times and then injected it straight into his spark. The first second felt fine, in fact, more than fine as his body and spark got their first dose of energon in millennia. Then the overload started.

Sideswipe, let go of the human! Sunstreaker ordered through the bond, sounding strained.

Numbly, Sideswipe tipped his hand, allowing the human to tumble the short way to the floor. She cried out in pain as her braced leg hit the floor, but he hardly noticed through the noise inside his head. He could understand how, if there was one fault in the wiring, the wires in question were fried, as the enormous energy wave expanded through his body.

* * *

Tears rolled down her cheeks as her leg painfully throbbed, but Elle couldn't stop watching the giant robot that had saved her, how every cavity and joint in its –no, his –armor, started to glow brightly. The sound and vibrations of heavy footsteps caught her attention, and soon, another giant robot loomed over them.

"At least I recognize these signs," the robot said in the same large voice she'd heard in Mission City. His hand seemed to part and rearrange itself until it was a syringe, which he then stuck into the neck of the glowing robot. Some of the glow transferred from the glowing robot into the needle robot's arm. He then withdrew the needle. "Give me your status, Sideswipe."

"Holy! It was like the time we tried purified energon sticks!" the formerly glowing, red robot burst out, turning towards the golden robot (that Elle recognized as her former car). "Why didn't you tell me it was like that?"

"I was busy getting fried from the inside out to notice," the golden robot snapped.

"Which was why I told you to never do it again. If the energon cannot make a complete circuit around the spark, it will melt you from the inside out." The needle robot's needle turned back into a hand. "Fortunately, I was at hand to extract some of the overloading energon before any damage was made."

"Wait!" Elle's head snapped around as she heard a human voice, and spotted a soldier. "Are you telling me that the girl is your equivalent of drugs?"

"I would hardly liken the process of drugs in organic creatures to highly refined or concentrated purified energon on our bodies. Though," the formerly-needle robot mused, "it would be the closest human equivalent. Drugs are often from plants, and humans need to eat some plants for their health, so I guess that explanation would suffice. Except that we do not get addicted," he was very careful to point out.

"What happened with my heart monitor?" Dr. Blyde's wail came from above, and Elle looked up just in time to see him turn towards the robot with the big cannons. "It was you, wasn't it?"

"It wasn't a heart monitor at the time. It was a killer machine intent on killing your patient," the heavily armed robot defended himself. "You can get a new one."

"Well yes, only, I have to write a ten-page report on why we need replacement equipment a week after they sent us replacement equipment."

"A week? Primus, those must be fragile!" Okay, so now Elle was watching a giant robot snark with her doctor. Come to think of it, it was one of the same robots that were in Mission City. Were they now working for the government? If so, they hopefully had better excuses than terrorists using hallucinogenic chemicals in their bombs.

"They wouldn't need replacements if you stupid Autobots would leave them alone! And could you kindly inform Skids and Mudflap that they're called _heart_ monitors and not _spark_ monitors for a reason, they are avoiding me."

However, if Elle guessed correctly, then these robots were in Egypt as well. If so, then her government was more stupid than usual.

"Speaking of avoiding," formerly needle-robot cut in. "Where's Optimus and Arcee?"

Really, what self-respecting Middle Eastern country would allow the US government conduct explosive experiments on top of one of their landmarks. And not just any landmark, but the Giza pyramid! And that excuse about hackers hijacking the entire broadcasting system for their home-made, CG, science fiction movie in order to simulate the _War of the Worlds_ incident...

"Yeah, I thought Optimus would at least be here after that hit Megatron got in at his back. And Arcee had the girl –the girl!" The soldier turned and ran towards Elle as he remembered her. "Hey, you alright?"

Elle blinked slowly and looked up at him. "I was chased by my murderous ex. My getaway car turned out to be a giant robot, as did the police car following. There was a battle. An earthquake. I'm glowing _again_. My heart monitor transformed into a killer robot intent on my demise. I was dropped by another giant robot on my sprained leg. Only to learn that I'm the ecstasy of the giant robot world. And I've come to the disturbing conclusion that despite beliefs of the contrary, my government is full of sucky liars. No, I'm not alright." She smiled, a surprisingly brilliant smile. "I'm hungry. I haven't eaten since yesterday." _Well, if you can't run away screaming bloody murder and government conspiracy, befriend them!_

The soldier chuckled in uncertainty, probably deciding if she was crazy or not. "Lets see if we can do anything about that, Ms...?"

"Woods." She still smiled, even as Dr. Blyde yelled down at them.

"Don't listen to her! Her name's Elle Murphy, and if she starts talking about going to Harvard, becoming a lawyer or getting a Chihuahua, just ignore her, she's just trying to confuse you."

Elle glared up at him. "Oh sure, take all the amusement the poor bedridden patient can have!"

"You're anything but poor. Last time I heard you became a millionaire."

"You've been keeping tabs on me? I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be touched or creeped out."

"Well, someone had to keep an eye on you after Agent Smith died."

"He's dead? How-"

"Alright, how about that lunch!" the soldier cut in. "Someone get a wheelchair and then we'll have lots of time to chat. By the way, I'm Major Will Lennox, call me Will."

"And the correct past tense of 'creep' is 'crept'. I'm Ratchet, medic of the Autobots. I will need to have a look at you after your meal." Needle-robot seemed like the tried not to be intimidating, but to Elle he could have been a giant, rabid dog, on account of both being a doctor and a giant freaking robot with needles for fingers.

"Um, nice to meet you?"

"Look, _Hatchet_, most humans will be nervous if you approach them with a 'can I dissect you after lunch' speech. This is how it's done: I'm Sideswipe, the (better) brother of your car. His name is Sunstreaker, but he's being a grump and wont introduce himself at the moment. The bot who nearly blew you up is Ironhide." The robot that had saved her seemed to be nice. Even if the murderous glares he received from his fellow robots made him hastily add. "And since I'm all repaired, I'm going now. Bye!" And he transformed into a red car and sped away, leaving Elle shell-shocked as she had watched him disassemble and reassemble above her head.

Will caught her eye and tried to be comforting. "Don't worry, things like this happen all the time." Oddly enough, it didn't sound as comforting as he meant.

Still, she got the gesture. "I'm just worried of accidentally getting underfoot of one of them."

"We wont step on you," the one called Ironhide told her. "We _know_ not to step on you." ("_We_?" Sunstreaker scoffed, but shut up when Ironhide glared at him.)

"What Ironhide is trying to tell you is that we have sensors that registering your presence and thus notifies us if you should come into our paths," Ratchet helpfully supplied. "And now he will go and fetch Optimus and Arcee for me."

"What am I, the med bay's Golden Retriever?" Ironhide grumbled as the wheelchair finally appeared. "Get Sunstreaker to do it, at least he's the right color."

"He doesn't know his way around base, but rest assure that his incivilities will not be ignored."

"Good."

* * *

"...And that brings us to now, any questions?" They had met Lieutenant Robert Epps on the way to the cafeteria, and he had assisted Will in regaling Elle about how the transformers came to Earth while she devoured a whole chicken by herself. The fact that the robots were alien (yet, what else could they be with the current state of technology?) nearly blew Elle's mind.

Even though she had figured that in an infinite universe, there should have been infinite chances of aliens existing, to actually have it confirmed nearly, what was the expression? Ah, yes, nearly fried her wires. Still, there were matters more pressing to her than the fact that the worlds' governments were in a giant conspiracy to hide a giant, alien robot war. "One, where's James?"

This question seemed to catch them off-guard, but finally, Will spoke. "He wasn't at the scene when the police went to pick him up."

"I still can't figure that one out, I mean, his car was turned over and one of those things must weigh at least a ton, so it's not like he could just flip it over." Epps scratched his chin, feeling the stubble coming on and promptly decided to buy a new razor next time he was off-base.

"I imagine that's why he stole the vehicle from CIA, some of them have mechanism to help out during a clandestine mission when a tow-truck could really blow their cover. Simply put, you push a button, it can flip itself upright from any position," Elle informed them. "We had one at home once, and I washed it and accidentally activated the damn thing. Scared me half to death, and nearly got hit as the car moved."

"You'd think the decals would blow their cover more," Epps pointed out.

"They can also be removed at the push of a button. My guess is that he activated them when going past a police vehicle so that he wouldn't get pulled over. I thought he just had a friend with gimmicky cars when I found it. I never dreamed that his demanding government work was for the CIA." Elle frowned.

"No kidding, our wives thought our cars were simple gimmicks and they transformed into _giant, talking robots_ in front of them. I think there's a live-and-let-live mechanism in every spouse's brain that gloss over things like this." Will tried to comfort her.

"Well, I'm lucky that I didn't start to ask questions as he probably would have killed me if I did. As long as I was the perfectly ignorant secret agent's wife, he was happy with the power of knowledge he could hold above my head. Especially since he would lose power within the agency had I figured things out, since he, as a secret agent, is supposed to be able to even fool his wife."

"On the subject of killing-"

"Epps, no, it's too soon," Will interjected.

"She deserves to know." Epps stared straight into Will's eyes, and Will's protests died. "Blake is currently the main suspect in several murders, and more just keep coming in as we trace back your movements. The FBI agent who worked with your case and Dr. Blyde was also killed. He was tortured, suggesting that's how Blake found out your new identity."

"Oh." Elle put down her fork, suddenly not feeling very hungry anymore. "What about Sally?"

"All his murder victims have been men, but he threatens and torture women. However, since you left, he should have no reason to visit her."

"You sure?" Suddenly the cocky, confident girl, larger than her real size, shrunk. She looked so much younger than she really was. So vulnerable and afraid.

"We've asked a friend to keep an eye on her, but according to criminal profilers and his former co-worker, Blake is unlikely to go after anyone who isn't between him and his goal. Especially not if they're a woman."

"I need to contact her. To tell her that I wont be coming back. I need to speak with my landlord as well. I need to move. Somewhere safe. Somewhere where I wont be a danger to anyone." Elle was rambling, and she knew she was rambling. "I need to file the paperwork to go back to my real identity, no sense in keeping a false one if he knows it. Which means that I need to claim Hugo's and my parents' estates as well, since I didn't when I was twenty-one because James would trace the money to my new identity, and if I claim them he can trace them anyway and he'll hurt everyone and it'll be my fault-"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Will held up his hands to stop the flow of words. "One, we'll contact anyone you need to contact. Two, we'll help you with the identity thing, if worst comes to worst, Skids or Mudflap can overwrite things. Three, it wasn't-"

"-your fault," Epps finished, drawing the girl into half a hug (mindful of her glowing skin and hair) that she accepted with alarming need while sobbing into his shirt. "It's all Blake's fault. And you don't need to worry about that for some time. First we sort this glowing thing out, then we need to sort the Decepticons might want to target you thing out, and if we manage _that_, Blake will seem like an insignificant problem, and whatever we have in place against Decepticons would probably vaporize him as well."

A choked giggle was his reward. "Or the Decepticons could walk on him on their way to me."

"That too!" Epps agreed with too much cheeriness. "In fact, if they don't, the Autobots probably will, and if that fails, we could always fill him with lead. Face it, right now, you're under NEST's protection."

Will caught on. "And if you haven't noticed, we are much better than the Secret Service."

A tentative smile appeared on Elle's face. "So, I'm better protected than the president?"

"Girl, the president tried to get an Autobot for a limo, but was turned down (on grounds on showing favoritism towards one country, which the Autobots weren't prepared to do), consider yourself lucky."

"Lucky, huh." Elle hadn't had much luck before. Of course, her major lucky breaks had been Hugo and Agent Smith, and both were dead, so perhaps she was due one more. Third time's the charm. Then she remembered a question she'd carried for several years. "You know that I was in Mission City as well, right? Well, I met an Autobot there, he was injured badly, cut in half to be exact, and dying. I think he died before I passed out, but I don't know, were they able to revive him like you said Sam did to Optimus Prime?"

"You must be talking about Jazz, and, well, resurrections are as unusual with the Autobots as they are with humans." Will shrugged. "His body was far too destroyed for repair, nearly all his energon was gone, and while they can survive for a while without energon, they slowly die as they use it up."

"Oh." Elle had guessed as much, but it was a crazy belief, like a faith, that had clawed at her sense of reason. She didn't want to believe that Jazz was dead, but she knew he was dead. Suddenly she realized it. "What about me? I brought that heart monitor to life, shouldn't I be able to resurrect Jazz?"

Epps and Will glanced at one another, and it was Will who spoke. "I don't know, but you must know that a transformer's life is in their spark. Unless you can bring his spark back, what you'll awaken will probably be another drone, one that's much harder to kill on account of having a fully realized transformer body."

Well, there went her chances of nurturing life instead of being linked with death. She knew nothing about sparks except how they look when they died.

Her deflated expression alarmed Epps, who thought that she would lapse into tears again. "Anyway, we are about to get some answers, so are you ready for our Hyde and Hatchet to examine you?"

"_Hyde and Hatchet_?" Elle echoed.

"Lets just say that if you join the military, _any_ military, be it Earth's or alien, you _don't_ want to end up in the med bay."

"What about the Decepticons?"

"Their medic is named Scalpel. Pray you never meet him, from what the kid told me, it was scary."

"_Scalpel_? Seriously?"

"Seriously. Fake German accent and all."

**End of 003**

* * *

_Well, Elle is up to speed, if slightly emotionally battered. Luckily she doesn't have the mental frame of mind for suicide, even if her actions sometimes claim otherwise_


	4. Some Answers, Many Questions

_Well, Elle had a smaller breakdown during last chapter. At least she wasn't unconscious?_

* * *

**Murphy's Law**

_004_

Some Answers, Many Questions

When they entered the med bay again, Ratchet was busy with reconnecting several wires in Optimus' shoulder. Optimus turned his head to greet them, only to be snapped at by Ratchet. "If you want to keep any mobility in this arm, you should stay _still_."

"He sounds like Blyde," Elle stage-whispered to Will as he maneuvered her wheelchair to face Optimus. She then greeted the leader of the Autobots with her usual sunny manner. "Hi! I'm Elle Murphy, or I was, and will be after some paperwork again, though you can call me Elle to cut down on any confusion!"

Apprehension tingled deep within her as he moved. The more lucid she became, after having eaten, slept and had time to digest the information, the more fearful she became of these large, _alien_ robots. Specifically, their movements. She had felt something similar once before, having been a child and visited a circus and fed the elephants carrots. She had heard some riders describe the feeling around large horses after having taken an equine break for a while. Basically, that the creature near them was just so large, so _humongous_ and _powerful_ that even if you got along perfectly well, they could crush you without a thought by sheer accident alone, and perhaps not even notice it.

"What did I say? Just stand still and let me work!" Ratchet once more ordered and Optimus froze.

Now Ratchet, Ratchet she wasn't afraid of, because he was too much like Blyde, and you had to be a total wimp to fear Blyde (suddenly every soldier on the base developed an uncanny itch). He was all bark, no bite, except the fact that he could kind of cut you open with a scalpel, but really, as a frequent customer of the hospital system, Elle could confidently say that even when he was giving shots, it hurt less than when seasoned blood drive nurses did... _Oh fuck!_ "_Idonatedblood_!"

"Huh?" Will and Epps blinked as Optimus' introduction was cut off before he even started.

She looked all around her, face pale (and glowing), like a scared deer. "I _donated_ my _blood!_"

"Er...?" They still couldn't follow entirely.

Frustration took over and she yelled. "I donated my blood last month, as in after Mission City and this glowing thing, at the blood drive van!"

The meaning of her words registered _finally_, and both Will and Epps paled as well. "I'll call up the blood-banks!" Epps said before Will could order it, hurrying out of the room.

"I guess it's lucky that I'm AB-plus?" Elle mumbled to herself, hoping that the fact that only someone else with AB+, which was only about 3% of the American population, could get her blood. On the other hand, _she_ _was a universal plasma donor_. She knew she signed some forms that gave them full "do-whatever-the-hell-you-like" waiver, and she didn't know if that meant that they could separate the plasma from her blood and use it. "This is so bad! Why did I agree to donate when I didn't even know if this glowing thing was a one time thing? Oh yeah, 'cause I didn't want to be the only one who didn't. But it was stupid, stupid, stupidstupid_stupid!_"

"Um, maybe we should test your blood before we panic?" Will tried to calm down the rambling woman. "For all we know, whatever this glowing, energon thing is, it might not have entered the bloodstream."

"Right..." Elle shakily breathed before steeling herself. "_Right!_ Lets get this dissecting done with!" She then remembered, and sheepishly looked up at Optimus. "Er, you were saying?"

She startled as a rumbling laughter filled the med bay. _He's... awe-inspiring, but maybe not so scary?_

"Oh, for the last time, don't move!" Ratchet smacked the shaking 'bot. "Or should I just leave it like this and start a betting pool on how long it takes for your arm to fall off?"

Okay, so maybe Blyde didn't take bets on limbs falling off, but it did wonders to cleanse the tension out of her system. "I guess we should do it some other time when Ha-_Ratchet_ isn't so busy."

Will hid a smirk as Ratchet contemplated warning her against using the nickname. Deciding that it was a losing battle, he simply said, "if Optimus would just stand still, I would be done in five minutes."

"Sorry," Optimus apologized, not sounding sorry at all. "And I am Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots," Optimus introduced himself to Elle.

"If it's anything like human governments, you have my condolences," Elle joked.

"Well, we _do_ have to handle the human government as well," Optimus mused. "Some of our meetings can be difficult."

Will groaned. "Right, thanks for reminding me. Galloway wants us all to relocate to Diego Garcia by the end of next month. He's effectively cutting our number of bases in half, and wants all Autobots in one location for one of his big speeches."

Elle tilted her head to the side. "Am I the only one who see the irony in allowing _aliens_ in _Diego Garcia_ when you want to keep them out of your hair?"

"Irony?" Optimus asked.

"If you ever have the time, Google the depopulation of Diego Garcia. In fact, there's a lot of irony in the _United States of America_ deciding about who is alien, considering how we treated Native Americans." Elle grumbled. "I went to a very liberal High School, and half of my class was filled with students rallying support behind petitions to let indigenous people have their own land."

"Either case, we can't do anything about it right now." Will sighed, as the highest ranking officer on base in Diego Garcia, he had often had meetings about that very thing, noticing that he himself was conveniently not able to do anything or make any decisions. Sometimes you just had to hate politics. "_Especially not_ with Galloway as our liaison."

"Why do I have a feeling that everyone hates him?" Elle innocently asked.

"I wouldn't say that we hate him. We just have differences in opinion," Optimus said just as Will answered, "Yeah, we hate him."

Elle raised an eyebrow. "Coming from an alien diplomat in a precarious position, I'm translating that Galloway would have won a Darwin Award for pissing off the giant war-'bots if this was a less civilized age."

"Only if his reproductive system is in his ears. Prime doesn't beat you around when he's angry with you. He _Lectures_ with a capital L," Will let Elle know.

"I didn't know that I came in capital size as well," Elle quickly heard the homophone. "Though I wouldn't mind aiding in lectures, though I've never to college, so I don't really know what to do."

Will blinked, before he realized the homophonous joke and laughed. "You're quite quick-witted, aren't you?"

"Not really, Agent Smith would have been able to tell-" Elle choked. _What the-?_ Wetness trailed down her face. _Why am I crying again? I don't feel like I'm crying._ She blinked, but the tears increased, and her breath became erratic.

"Elle?" Will took a step forward as the woman-girl withdrew into a fetal position in her wheelchair, hugging her legs close while crying. "You alright?" But she didn't seem to hear him.

Ratchet just about finished before Optimus dropped down to check on the distraught girl. Both noticing that the tears only glowed for a second after creating before dulling. Whatever made her glow obviously didn't exit her body by tears. Which meant that her sweat would be fine as well, and hopefully her blood too.

"You're either the luckiest or unluckiest girl in the world; your blood van was in a crash and had to trash all their blood, including yours and- what happened?" Epps returned with a piece of paper, and stopped as he took in the scene of the girl who couldn't be touched nearing hysteria, and the two robots and one man hovering around her.

Will only shook his head in confusion as Elle was hiccuping and gasping for air through silent sobs. Optimus and Ratchet looked equally puzzled, if even more worried, as this was the first time they'd seen a human body almost _trying_ not to breathe.

Fortunately, Blyde choose that moment to pop in. "Is it time for Elle's- Elle!" He rushed forward. "Don't just stand there, help me get her to her room!"

With Will rolling the wheelchair and holding on to it on Optimus' palm, they were quickly carried to the human area, where Blyde and a nurse received them. Elle was soon placed in her room, and the door shut behind Blyde, leaving the others to stare.

"She will be alright?" Optimus asked. "She wasn't breathing."

"She'll be okay, children sometimes enter that state when upset," Will answered, though he didn't sound as sure as he would have liked.

It was around that time another giant robot entered. "Hey guys, did you hear about regrouping at Diego Garcia? And what's this I hear about energon?" Jolt asked, before taking a double take at a corner. "And why is Ensign Jones in a fetal position, mumbling lullabies in the corner?" The group blinked, transferring their eyes from the door to the corner.

"That's right," Ratchet remembered. "Blyde tried a new salve to treat his burns. The inflammation went down surprisingly quickly, but since then he's been like that. Blyde told me that it's of no concern and just a reaction to the stinging feeling. He's actually contemplating putting the salve in standard emergency equipment, as it performed above expectations with few side-effects."

Will and Epps paled.

* * *

"Hey, did you hear that Energon Girl had a major freak out?" One of the soldiers asked his comrade as they passed two Autobots. "It took a whole hour to stabilize her, and on top of it all, Jittery Jones is in some kind of state. I heard Hyde is in a bad mood and took it out on him." And so, another urban legend was born as they rounded the corner.

"Concerned?" Blue Arcee asked Sunstreaker as his eyes followed the retreating humans.

"No." The answer was firm. "I'm just wondering how you can work together with these... _organics_."

"I heard that, _machine_!" another soldier called as he scurried into another room before Sunstreaker could take a closer look at him.

_Primus! They're everywhere!_ Sunstreaker thought as he refocused on Blue Arcee.

"You'd be surprised how closely you can bond with them. Did you know that they always keep their bonding channels open? And bond just by interacting with one another? While it is not as close a bond as we," meaning the Arcee units herself, "can have, it can become as close as a spark-mating bond."

Sunstreaker stared at her in horror. The thought that these humans could actually worm themselves so close to the Autobots sent him reeling. The thought that his brother had been exposed even more so.

"Don't look so horrified. It's nice." Arcee grew distant. "It's like being Home." Her Home with a capital H had always been before the war, before moving to Cybertron's capital city, in the small town where she and her brothers and sisters had lived, raced, hunted and simply existed. She had been bonded to all of them, most of them now dead.

Sunstreaker wanted to snap at her, tell her that she was crazy, but even he had a limit. Which meant that he now couldn't bitch about humans within Arcee's hearing ‒and she could be at _three_ places at the _same time_.

Arcee suddenly came back to Earth, in fact, she went from wistful to smug in under a second. "Our pink unit just spoke with Ironhide. We suggest you prepare yourself for tomorrow's test."

"Test?" With Ironhide. Sunstreaker could hear Sides' sniggering in the back of his mind.

* * *

"Oh great, a lucid dream! Just what I _needed_! And if anyone's listening, that was sarcasm!" Elle stared at the psychedelic surroundings, the stairs going upside-down and inside-out, and paintings floating in midair and checkered floor formed hilly grounds, turning into purple bamboo which formed walls, and non-reflecting mirrors forming windows.

To make matters worse, completely mundane, fake plastic wood and iron school-desks and a giant blackboard designated said room as a classroom. Though, occasionally a badger-porcupine would scurry across the floor, but each time she turned her head to look the way it went, it had disappeared. For some reason she felt that going near it would be bad, that it would spray her like a skunk. Yup, this was most definitely the most lucid, crazy dream she ever had.

Then, almost as if a teacher had called for order, she turned attentively towards the blackboard, where strange squiggles were being drawn by invisible chalk. It looked a bit like astrological symbols, runes, the Hebrew alphabet and some other ciphers had gotten together at a mad swinger's party and then had a lot of illegitimate babies. _If this is a test, I'm so screwed._

The squiggles stopped scribbling, then flickered. Elle blinked, slowly seeing that they had shuffled around, creating gaps in the middle of the text.

Then the pressure began, and intense, questioning pressure bore down on her until she was on her knees. "What the hell?"

A piece of chalk had suddenly appeared in her hand, disorienting her further. "What is it?"

Questioning. Curiosity. Inviting. Images, memories of herself as she stared in a mirror, flashed before her eyes. "Me?"

Yes. Yes. Questioning. Inviting. People introducing themselves to her. Herself. Herself.

"I'm Elle?" She swallowed, struggling to her feet.

More. Questioning. Her. The feeling of dragging chalk across a blackboard.

"I should write my name?" Elle asked, looking at the gaps on the blackboard.

Yes.

Her arm felt heavy as she started to write, filling one gap. She was about to write again in the next gap, but something stopped her and she moved on to the next one. When she was done, only two gaps remained. "Now what?"

Questioning. People milling in in the streets. A skeleton. Her standing naked in front of a mirror. Book on biology. The Vitruvian Man. People. People in zoos, but all but humans were blurred out. "Human?"

Confirmation.

She set about writing 'human' in the remaining gaps. Then vertigo overtook her and the room disappeared, leaving only the symbols to float in the darkness, her own writing in stark contrast. Suddenly her letters changed into the squiggly ones, and they floated around, combining and creating a new symbol that then duplicated itself and slotted into the gaps, fitting right in.

"Wait! Why can I read it now-!" Light flooded her vision, and when she opened her eyes, she stared at her room's ceiling through darkness. In fact, it was really, really dark. Almost as if she wasn't glowing anymore.

* * *

Blyde sighed as he sorted through papers in his office. He wasn't entirely sure what had gone wrong with Elle, but put it down to delayed shock as she easily went down after been given some mild sedatives. Then he had to reassure everyone outside that yes, she was still alive, and then he to go and grab something to eat. Which reminded him to make sure that all the newbies ate as they should, as they often skipped meals in their excited state (come to think of it, he had to give quite a number of them sedatives after they were introduced to the Autobots and reality that yes, Earth wasn't alone in space). And now, he was marking down which ones to be lectured on the importance of eating properly.

Which lead to him staring at a consumption report which had no rank put down, because the consumer wasn't military.

Ten pancakes. One whole chicken. Three portions of rice. A green salad. Two eggs. Five glasses of milk. A bowl of fruit salad. Some bacon. Additional sauces, salt, pepper, whipped cream and other miscellaneous side-dishes. Oh, and some chocolate pudding and ice-cream, which she ate before the meal (tsk, tsk).

There was _no way in hell_ that her stomach would be able to handle all that. _And he just sedated her_, dooming her to die by choking on her own regurgitation!

* * *

_Maybe it was all just a dream? Maybe I'm in a normal hospital after slipping and hitting my head at work?_ Elle wondered as she stood on her so-called damaged leg without any problems as she made her way to the adjoining bathroom, flicking on the light-switch. Hey, when nature calls, you don't just wait for the nurse to show up without trying yourself first!

Nevermind the leg-brace. She finished her business, not even noticing that it took much longer than usual, and washed her hands, staring into the mirror.

But if she had hit her head, shouldn't she at least see a bump or bruise? In fact, her skin looked better than ever, rose-golden and smooth, and when she turned her head, she didn't feel anything out of the ordinary at all. It was as if she had no injuries at all.

She dried her hands and looked down at the brace, before bending down and removing it, revealing a leg that was not swollen, not discolored in any way, and not hurting no matter how much she prodded it, twitched her muscles, rotated her joints or stomped.

Puzzling over this new mystery, she opened the bathroom door, only to have it connect with the hospital room door as someone opened that door. The handles locked together and there was some rattling and cussing before Elle and Blyde, brandishing a syringe already halfway into a bottle, managed to solve the problem.

"You're awake! But the sedatives shouldn't have worn off for another hour or so," Blyde wondered aloud, before he noticed the distinct lack of glow and brace. "And you're not glowing, and you're standing. And no bruises."

"Thank god they wore off or my bladder would have exploded." Elle was obviously not impressed at having been sedated. "Don't ask me about the glow or injuries, I'm just glad it's- hey!" She was suddenly pulled outside the room. Both noting that he wasn't burned, singed or otherwise radiated.

"RATCHET!" Blyde yelled and the giant robot soon appeared. "Scan her! Make sure that you leave nothing unnoticed!"

A red light swept over her, and she squirmed in his grip. "That tickles- wait, it stings! Pins and needles, pins and needles! It feels like my skeleton is vibrating, stop!"

It seemed like an eternity of uncomfortable static before it stopped. Ratchet reported mechanically as he tried to process his findings. "All her human systems are functioning normally and no injuries are apparent. She has an increased level of blood cells but it is going back to normal. She unquestionably have Energon Protocols imprinted inside of her."

"Does that mean no more sprains?" Elle asked, concentrating on the part she knew wouldn't give her a headache.

"What are Energon Protocols?" Blyde concentrated on the part that would give her a headache.

"Energon Protocols are all the data of energon; locations, uses, creation of new sparks and transformers, basically, all the data of the All Spark that did not pertain our history, culture and religion." Ratchet seemed even more confused than the humans at his next statement. "They do not, however, create energon or the energy of energon themselves. They might be able to store energon, but it is unlikely in a human body as opposed to the All Spark."

"Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't I radiating that a few hours ago?"

* * *

Cybertron had gone to the dogs, or rather, the Decepticons, as their army of seekers had made the planet their stronghold. Which was why the Autobots had abandoned their home to fight battles that wouldn't end in their gory deaths, which was why Bluestreak was stationed at a moon with a larger company of inexperienced warriors, mostly former neutrals who had fled until there was nowhere else to flee. Once upon a time, he had been one of them, which was why he didn't even bother coddling them. The sooner they realized the price of war, the sooner they would toughen up into good warriors.

One Track especially.

"But Sunstorm is in that base!" One Track wasn't named that because his alt-mode ran on tracks, but because of his mental quirks, which had prompted him to remind Bluestreak about once every klik that the insane, lonesome and extremely dangerous seeker was the commander of the base they were about to attack.

"And we outnumber them three to one, and they only have one seeker, who is off with his head in the stars most of the time. Now shut up and be ready to ram those doors down!"

One Track grumbled but transformed, then he started moving, picking up speed as he went. Oh yeah, he might also have had that reputation about being unstoppable, because once he started, there was no stopping him, not even himself, as he came within striking range of the automated defenses, which started to fire on him. "Ow! Ouch! Stop that!"

The great door loomed in front of him, and he was starting to have second thoughts when they suddenly opened. He _hated_ being the distraction. Why couldn't he be an infiltrator like most of his unit? Oh yeah, because he couldn't infiltrate a glitch-mouse nest without setting off a thousand alarms.

The doors suddenly slid open, and he panicked and hit the breaks, the breaks shrieking in protest as he tried to avoid making an extra door in the next wall. He failed miserably.

"Hey guys, there's no one here!" the transformer that had opened the doors, and also the second-in-command of the unit, Hot Shot said. "Pepper is currently shutting down the defensive systems and the others are checking all hiding places, but so far, no 'cons."

"What?" Bluestreak came out of his hiding place, still with his guns ready. "They were here just an orn ago!"

"Well, you're welcome to look for yourself," Hot Shot answered as the defensive lasers withdrew.

A few groons later, it was obvious that the base was abandoned, and had been abandoned in haste, as only the most top level of data had been erased. What hadn't been erased was the destination of Sunstorm's unit.

"They're going to Earth? What's Earth?" Bluestreak wondered aloud.

"The planet that Optimus sent the memo on, the one that he hopes for us to rebuild on. Some organic backwater planet at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy." Hot Shot went through his memory banks. "Oh! Also where the All Spark was sent before being destroyed."

"If Megatron is calling Sunstorm there..." Bluestreak trailed off, troubled by the implications, before a sudden flow of data, sent across space to all Autobots, hit him.

_"Prowl here. We've managed to recapture Dabola without any Decepticon resistance. Previously, Decepticons Thundercracker, Skywarp, Tidal Wave and Cyclonus were confirmed to be in the solar system but now cannot be located."_

_"Red Alert here, I fear that there's a deceptive trap set by the Decepticons. Just groons before this message I witnessed Thrust, Dirge and Ramjet take off from Cybertron. Destination unknown. I caution everyone to not let their guard down as the Decepticons are probably waiting for us to strike the moment we feel secure."_

_"Chromia here, anyone knows why there's no Decepticons left in this asteroid belt? They were here just groons ago!"_

_"Wheeljack here. Like Prowl I seem to be missing my opponents. Moving out to join with Red Alert's unit to prevent him from a paranoid breakdown."_

_"Um, does anyone know where this planet named Earth is? Because Scourge's unit mentioned it before suddenly running away ̶not that they shouldn't when facing me ̶just seemed out of character, that's all. Anyway, Tracks, over and out."_

_"Hot Rod here. Yeah, you can probably guess what I'm going to say by now. Anyway, I'm moving out to Earth as there's nothing left here to scavenge. They just reduced this planet to a lump of coal and then disappeared!"_

Troubled? Bluestreak was suddenly very, very cold.

"So, what are we going to do, boss-bot?" Hot Shot asked.

"We?" It took a second, but Bluestreak gathered himself and soon reached a decision, turning towards One Track. "Congratulations, you're promoted to commander of this unit!"

"I am?" One Track perked up from his heap on the floor, before frowning. "Wait, what about you?"

"Hot Shot and I will go to Earth and join Optimus' unit. Hot Shot, send out a message to all Autobots that if possible, abandon their bases and join up with Optimus Prime on Earth. Something big is about to go down and we're already late as it is."

"Is that advisable?" Hot Shot questioned. "What if it _is_ a trap? And don't we need those bases?"

"We only captured those bases for the energon, but they're all dried up now. And Megatron wouldn't call out all seekers if it was just a trap, that's too much of a gamble, even for him. Besides, Thrust have shown a decided shift in loyalties against Megatron lately, not enforcing his laws and even pulling down some of his statues. If Thrust suddenly decided to follow Megatron again, it's something big, and likely very, very valuable. If we don't act now, whatever this Earth planet has, could fall into their hands, and I'm afraid that we'll lose this war."

**End of 004**

* * *

_To be a radioactive, alien drug or not to be? That's the question! Anyway, we'll probably see some growth to the Earth cast soon._


	5. Tests? But We Haven't Studied Yet!

_Last time, Elle stopped glowing. However it seems to be too early to celebrate just yet as Autobots and Decepticons make their way to Earth._

* * *

**Murphy's Law**

_005_

Tests? But We Haven't Studied Yet!

"Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't I radiating that a few hours ago?"

"Yes, which is what's so curious. We are going to need to run several tests in order to find out more," Ratchet answered.

"Well, I'm already up and about, unless you're busy."

"Then we'll start with blood samples," Blyde decided. "I want to know how you managed to heal so fast, and if it can be replicated in others."

Elle sighed but obediently followed Blyde and Ratchet. To tell the truth, she was getting tired of her body doing inexplicable things, and if it meant tapping her on blood, put her through radiation and being dissected by a giant alien, well, she just would have to deal with it.

* * *

Major William Lennox had witnessed much destruction in his life. In fact, after joining NEST, the destruction just seemed to add up into a giant pile of collateral damage, and that's not even counting the destructive properties of a toddling daughter. Yet, even with his vast destructive experiences, he couldn't help but to wince as another human target was impaled by debris from the exploded house. The Decepticon target, however, was still tearing through the training grounds, making a larger effort than Sunstreaker not to kill any of the other targets. _At least Sunstreaker got the Pretender_, Will tried to find the silver-lining. _Even if he took out the daycare center and shopping mall while doing so._

Optimus and Sideswipe also watched this destruction, the former letting Will ride on his shoulder, far away from any stray glass-shards, while the latter just seemed to be in shock.

Ironhide, present in the middle of the training grounds, shook his head. He would have a _word_ with Sunstreaker later, but it was clear that the golden twin wouldn't be cleared for active duty anytime soon. "The test is over."

Sunstreaker screeched to a halt from his pursuit of the Decepticon target, a remote-controlled car, and rounded up on Ironhide. "What do you mean it's over? I almost had 'im!"

Sunny, shut up, his twin cautioned him through the bond.

"This wasn't a test of your 'con-killing skills. This was a test to see if we could trust you out in the world without massive amounts of collateral damages and loss of lives!" Ironhide growled. "You've just destroyed and killed an entire shopping district's worth of people!"

"It's not my fault that everything's so fragile on this planet," Sunstreaker defended himself.

Now you've done it! Sideswipe snapped through the bond, confusing Sunstreaker.

Ironhide had gone very, very still. Then it started, the lecture, and the shots emphasizing his points. Sunstreaker should do well to remember that Earth had kindly allowed them to stay, that Earth was, unlike Cybertron, still a living planet, and that Earth's creatures were not there for Sunstreaker to wipe out.

To be honest, it sounded suspiciously like the lecture _Optimus_ gave _Ironhide_ upon the formation of NEST. Not that Ironhide took it to heart before he met Annabelle, who showed him just how fragile and resilient Earth's flora and fauna really were.

* * *

"A broken rib, a bruised shoulder, a concussion and scratches. You, Mr. Edel, are a very lucky man to come out of a car accident with such minor injuries," the doctor said as they finished the man's treatments. "What were you doing again?"

James sounded as pathetic as he could, while inwardly sneering at the doctor who refused to release him until they were sure the concussion wasn't severe, "Off-roading, the car flipped all the way around."

"And you drove here all by yourself? That's a miracle in itself."

Yeah, a miracle, and not the last of his special pain killers and adrenaline. Still, he couldn't really remember what happened. There was a police car, Elle's golden car, and then he remembered some huge shadows and blasts before falling unconscious. He needed to get out of this hospital before the trail grew cold, or the FBI/CIA/Police/Military/Whomever else on his trail widened their search area and started asking the hospitals in this town if James Blake had sought help with them. Fortunately, he had a friend in town who owed him a favor.

* * *

Ratchet looked up from his thirteenth scan of Elle as a smoking and dented Sunstreaker limped inside the med bay. "What happened to you?"

"Ironhide." Sunstreaker really didn't want to talk about it.

Fortunately, he didn't have to as his twin appeared. "He failed miserably and Ironhide decided to make a point."

"Failed what?" Elle asked as Blyde dripped some eye-drops into her eye before shining a light, observing how the chemicals changed colors in a way they normally would do in contact with energon.

"Nothing!" Sunstreaker snapped just as Sideswipe quipped, "Life!"

"You know what? I don't even want to know. Are you done yet?" Elle grumbled at the extraterrestrial and terrestrial medics.

"Soon, and we should be getting the preliminary results of your blood back about now." Just as Blyde finished, Ensign Jones appeared with a file, having just about recovered from the lotion's stinging effects ("Like a million blue bottles stinging you at once! And I should know, I was stung twice on my Australian vacation!" "That's hyperbole. I tried it myself and it barely felt like a nettle's sting." "Yeah well, _you_ weren't energon-burned!").

Ensign Jones paused, warily glancing around in case one of Blyde's nurses decided to jump him with another experimental concoction at hand. Finding the coast clear, he hurriedly covered the last of the distance. "According to Dr. Andersen, prelims only gave an intense increase in vitamins, minerals and that kind of stuff. Well, that's the short version, the long version is in these."

Blyde snatched the file and flipped through the pages, his frown deepening. _It should be impossible, but it's the only explanation._ "Ratchet?"

"While I would not like to draw conclusions based on incomplete data, I must admit that there's very few explanations, and the one we discussed earlier seems more and more likely."

"What?" Elle asked, annoyed at being left out of the loop.

"It seems like your body, like the All Spark, is capable of sending commands to the Energon Protocols, gather energon, use energon and store energon. For some reason, there was a glitch earlier that caused an uncontrollable outpouring of energon, a loop if you will, most probably caused by an incomplete command. Though we still don't know what prompted the command to be completed." Ratchet put down his tools and perused his databanks of medical information.

"One of our theories, since repairs would be in the purview of the Energon Protocols, is that when the command was completed, the energon you were radiating was used as energy to heal your body, and that your increased appetite would be akin to gathering the materials needed. However, even with an increased metabolism it would be impossible to completely feed the whole process, which means that whatever was left to do was done with energon. Which is why Ratchet has been scanning you every half-hour or so." Blyde shut the files.

"And I have found traces of... prototype energon-based bodies near your injured areas." Ratchet still tried to puzzle things out.

"Great, so does that mean that I'm one third alien now?" Elle asked, not overly concerned as everything seemed normal to her. And the fact that if she thought long and hard about the implications, she would probably hyperventilate and pass out.

"Less than one percent," Ratchet corrected. "I wont have anything more exact until all the tests have been done."

"And my body isn't rejecting or having an allergic reaction or anything?" Elle prompted further.

"No. It seems to take well to it's alien guests."

"Well, I was always brought up to be a good hostess. And with my inevitable death postponed indefinitely, probably until I'm ninety or so, can I go and grab some breakfast? I've been your little guinea pig since yesterday!" Elle turned on the cocker spaniel eyes. _Feeeeeed me! I haven't had anything to eat since the Dark Ages!_

It turned out to be unnecessary. "I've already contacted Major Lennox. He will pick you up as soon as he finished his report on Sunstreaker's status."

"Should take long, something like: Blew up everything. Shouldn't be allowed within a mile of life. Otherwise an excellent performance in optimum collateral damage," Sideswipe joked and danced out his brother's reach as Sunstreaker tried to hit him.

Elle felt a twinge of sympathy and also quite a bit of guilt. As she understood it, she had completely overwhelmed and taken control of Sunstreaker, and while she didn't mean to, she could understand the invasive feeling, and is subsequent dislike of humans. So she decided to stand up in his defense. "Well, he didn't step on me despite the fact that I was completely underfoot when you fought the Decepticons."

"Hey, you're right!" Sideswipe rounded up on his brother. "Was that because it would leave a mess, or because you actually, deep down, can find it in you to value humans?"

"Shut it!" Sunstreaker snarled, but Sideswipe only laughed, so Sunstreaker turned towards the human. "And you don't need to defend me."

Instead of snapping back like she'd done with Ratchet and Blyde when they got too excited, she looked down and withdrew into herself. She suspected that his dislike for humans might've started with her, and maybe if she tried, it would stop at her as well. "I'm sorry."

"Huh? You've got nothing to be sorry for!" Sideswipe said as Sunstreaker grew quiet, also wondering about the sudden remorse. "He's just being an aft."

"Not about that, I mean about the overloading and taking control of him. It must have felt awful not to have anyone else control of your own body." Elle trailed off into a mumble of apologies.

All the transformers stared at her as if she'd grown another head. It was Ratchet who finally got it. "You don't have to worry about that. Unlike humans, transformers do not have such a deep attachment to their bodies."

"Yeah, there even used to be combiners, in which different transformers combined into one body and leave control to a dominant spark. Arcee is an example, but she's just one spark. I'm talking about two-to-five sparks in one body with only one spark in control..." Sideswipe trailed, unsure where he was going with this, and if it actually helped their point.

Now, Sunstreaker would lie if he said he wasn't wary of having humans inside of him, but only a small part was due to the overload, and more about how disgusting organics were. He would also lie if he said that he wasn't particularly wary of Elle, but it was just caution from experience. Her guilt was clearly out of proportion to the damage. "It's fine. It wasn't particularly traumatic. Just inconvenient and potentially dangerous given the situation, but it's nothing now."

She didn't seem to believe him, and he growled in frustration. If his words wouldn't go through her primitive processor, then maybe his actions would.

Elle yelped as his hand closed around her, and she heard protests from the others as she was pressed against Sunstreaker as he started to shift around her. It was a dazzling display of mechanics, yet oddly, a week or so ago, she would have been mesmerized, now she didn't even marvel at how easily even the damaged parts slid into place. It was as if all her interest in all thing mechanical and technical had died, reduced to what they were before Mission City.

This new realization left her simply staring through the windshield as Sunstreaker finished his transformation. _Can Energon Protocols take over my brain?_

"See, nothing to it," Sunstreaker said once the painful transformation was done. There was a reason why transformers tried not to transform when damaged, and on top of it, he had to make sure he didn't squish the girl inside of him, lengthening the process by several kliks ̶er, seconds ̶ in order to maneuver her into the right position.

"You could have killed her! One mistake and she would have been dead!" Ratchet exploded.

"But I didn't, and she's fine. Hey, tell Hatchet that you're alright so that he can stop abusing my audio receptors!"

With a heavy sigh, Elle leaned her forehead against the wheel in front of her. _I give up. I'm not normal. Never was, never will be. I might as well accept it all._

Blyde was fascinated as the Autobots suddenly stilled, and sensory instruments around them registered an every expanding wave of energy from the woman within the car. Like ripples, the energy effortlessly spread over the base, making transformers pause and soldiers wondering why the giant robots suddenly stopped moving and talking.

They weren't offline, that much was certain, but they weren't entirely focused on reality either.

Sunny, isn't this a bonding channel? Sideswipe asked, trying to pinpoint the sensation of the all-encompassing acceptance. Like ours?

I hope not, because I think I responded.

Oh... Me too.

Do all humans do this?

No. Usual human bonding is gradual and uncontrollable. So far, only 'Hide, 'Bee and Optimus have had deep bonds with humans, and 'Bee describes it as a mixture of both our and their bonding. It has never been through opening any channels like this.

Less than one percent my aft! Sunstreaker grumbled. This is entirely Cybertronian in nature!

Not really. There's no boundaries in this channel, which is very much like usual human bonds. I say that she somehow adapted her bonding to be recognizable to the ones she's bonding with, Sideswipe theorized.

So she's actively trying to snare us into her bond?

Humans cannot decide whether to bond or not. Actually, I think she's trying to bond with herself.

Why? Sunstreaker asked, but Sideswipe didn't answer.

Sideswipe just didn't have time to lecture on the complex relationships humans had with themselves while the waves of companionship lapped at him. He didn't care if he permanently bonded with with the originator, if it was as a sibling, guardian, ward or mate, just that such a sincere offer of companionship should be answered. Especially since he had never had to resist a bonding before, having been created with his bond to Sunstreaker, and during the beginning of the war, when everyone stopped opening their bonding channels in such a free way.

Unfortunately, the ripples, the waves reaching out in acceptance, did not stop inside the base.

* * *

Upon the unexpectedly sudden appearance of Thundercracker's troops (Flatline having invented a new way to open inter-dimensional gates, unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before the Autobots figured it out as well), he had made his escape and was now driving between two cities, not really sure where to go from there. First phase was to get out while their numbers bloated and it would take longer time to realize that he was gone. Second phase was to get to the general direction of the Autobot base. Third phase was somehow getting his point across without getting killed.

The bonding wave hit him with the force of a comet, sending him skidding into a ditch. _What kind of crazy femme opens an open bonding channel in the middle of a war?_

Still, it was perfect timing and he wouldn't look a gift gun in the magazine.

Barricade responded.

* * *

It was Arcee who first snapped out of it, and all her three units raced to the med bay, past a confused Will, and slammed into Sunstreaker, jolting Elle back to Earth, and by consequence, the others as well. "Are you crazy?"

"Ow! What?" As far as Elle was concerned, she had been busy remapping her future. She could feel Sunstreaker shudder around her and wondered whyy he hadn't thrown her out yet.

"You opened a bonding channel! An _open_ bonding channel!"

"A what?"

"Did you get any responses beside ours?"

"What?"

"It seems like we need to hurry those tests along. She's executing commands unconsciously and that could get dangerous," Ratchet cut in. He had also answered the wave, more out of fascination than anything else, but he had forgotten how intoxicating the experience could be. He really should have stopped her the moment her energies started to turn outwards again, but scientific curiosity and the fact that observation was really all they could do at present had stalled him. "But I don't believe she bonded with anyone. Not that way. She's too human."

All Arcee's units stared at him in disbelief. She had been the most bonded 'bot ever to go into war, and she had recognized the way Optimus and Bumblebee were around Sam. The masochistic way Wheelie subjected himself to Mikaela. The tenderness with which Ironhide would watch over Annabelle, and the comradeship he displayed with Will. Once upon a time, transformers bonded as freely as humans did, only strife making them isolate and put security codes on their channels, that a human would do the same, particularly one with Cybertronian coding inside them, wasn't very farfetched to her.

"Why are everyone so tense?" Elle asked as she tried to open Sunstreaker's door, but he wouldn't let her out. "Sunstreaker?"

"Stay." Sunstreaker didn't want that feeling of security to go away. That feeling of _rightness_ that he _had_ to respond to.

"Okay... Anyway, what got everyone so worked up?" Elle looked from one transformer to another.

"You just sent out an open bonding channel, think of it as a very thorough introduction, which every transformer in range seems to have responded to. It created a preliminary bond between us," Arcee explained, now having calmed down somewhat.

"Oh, is it bad?" Elle wondered, trying to envision her future permanently attached to these huge robots.

"Fortunately, we can just severe the bond ourselves, since you cannot consciously do so on your own." Arcee sighed, she didn't want to severe any bonds, but it was clear that she had to lead by example. Quickly, she sorted through her channels until she found the code.

...

"Um, was something supposed to happen?"

* * *

Barricade cursed in both Cybertronian and every human language he could find. After having established the bond, he had looked it over in order to locate the femme's position, only to find a mess of encrypted code no decryption he knew could break.

Which meant that he couldn't find her exact location, and that he couldn't break the bond even if he tried. Maybe it had been a trap after all.

* * *

"At least it isn't the end of the world. I'm sure that we'll fix this minor situation soon enough," Blyde tried to reassure the Autobots as they slowly filtered in the med bay, looks varying from horror to guilt on their faces as they carried some of the higher ranked soldiers with them.

"Is being bonded to me that bad?" Elle huffed in mock-indignity, trying to lighten the mood.

"Of course not," Sunstreaker cooed, still not letting her out of him.

"Okay, _now_ you're scaring me." Elle almost felt ill, remembering how the Energon Protocols had scrambled her own likes and dislikes, and how they seemed to have gone all out on Sunstreaker. She just apologized for the last time she overrode him for god's sake! "Can't someone do something about this?" She tried to open the door again.

"Stay."

"I'm hungry. It's almost lunchtime and I haven't had breakfast."

"Stay."

"Sunny, let her out," Sideswipe had given up on trying to reach him through the bond, it was as if Sunstreaker was too far down a different road to hear him.

The door suddenly gave way, sending Elle, and a fine, almost invisible, mist tumbling out. Energon again. Fortunately, this time it only took minutes to shake off the intoxication and soon Sunstreaker transformed into his robotic form. "_Never_ again."

"It seems like exposure to her type of energon temporarily increases the bond while dulling the senses," Ratchet observed.

Elle sighed and curled into a ball. She was just so tired and hungry right now. Fortunately, Will caught on to her impending breakdown. "Why don't you continue to discuss this while she gets something to eat?"

_Thank you, thank you, thank you!_ Elle sprung to her feet before anyone could answer, and by the time Optimus had given his consent, she had already dragged the Major out the door. It wasn't until they were halfway down the corridor that she spoke. "Why did this have to happen? Everything was going so well and then _this_ happens!"

"From what I gather, these preliminary bonds wont last forever if they're left alone, so it's not a huge problem. The biggest problem is that you're activating all these things without any control, which is what I think we should be talking about instead," Will said, ushering her down a different corridor as she nearly went to the hangars instead.

"If left alone... Why do they have these inconvenient ways to build relationships anyway?" Elle growled. "Why not just take each day like every other creature! And not this 'hi, wanna be soulmates? Yes? Done!' kind of thing."

"Millions of years of war. Their natural way of bonding is actually not different from ours, they just have isolated the processes and focused them so that they wont bond with their enemies."

"Chicken and egg situation is more like it. They don't feel empathy for their enemies, so they never try to make peace, hence the millions of years of war, hence they make sure not to empathize with their enemies." Elle sighed again and rubbed her eyes. She would be out like a light right after brunch.

"Empathy on the battlefield would kill you and your comrades."

"An eye for an eye leaves the entire world blind. Killing each other until there's no enemies left doesn't end the problem of the war, it simply treats the symptoms. Do we even know why they war?"

"The Decepticons are evil and wants to rule the transformers?"

"Then why go to war? From what I heard, Megatron pretty much co-ran Cybertron with Optimus. He controlled pretty much everything he cares about, and what he didn't care about, Optimus handled."

"Where did you hear that?" Will questioned.

"Up all night with Ratchet, and while he wasn't as neutral with his words, I pretty much got the gist of things, except the reason as to why there's a war. I would ask around, but I have a feeling that it would be insensitive. And I'll take some lamb chops, potatoes and apple pie with a glass of milk." Elle received her food and they went to a table.

"At least your portions are shrinking," Will commented.

"I hope everything will return to normal soon, since I can't stay here."

"Why?" Will was honestly bewildered. "I mean, of course you can't stay here when we go to Diego Garcia, but you can come with us."

"The bonds need to fade, right? And they wont if I interact with the Autobots, which means that I should get out of your hair as soon as possible." And Elle also had a score to settle with a certain ex who would never show his face again if she spent the rest of her life on military base after military base. She was tired of running and being afraid.

"Not before you learn to control this energon thing, and not without Autobot guardians. Remember, there's Decepticons out to get you." Will pointed out.

"Are there any Autobots I haven't bonded with yet?" Elle asked, devouring her food.

"A few, and they're busy, but new ones tend to show faster and faster nowadays-" Will was cut off as alarms went off. "Like now, can you find your way back to the med bay by yourself?"

"Sure, it's a right, right and then left."

* * *

"I can't believe we're still in one piece," Hot Shot whispered to Hot Rod as Wheeljack's newest invention, a small ship, exited the inter-dimensional gate. All the Autobots on their way to Earth had convened at one of Bhul's moons, where Wheeljack had revealed his newest invention: Inter-Dimensional Space Ship Mach Cross. Which just happened to be one of the smallest space ships Hot Shot ever had been on.

"I can't believe we're doing this. You sure Bluestreak's judgments are sound?" Hot Rod whispered back, taking care to not let their objects of conversation hear them.

"Well, he _does_ have a vendetta with the seekers, but he wouldn't totally screw up because of it," Hot Shot answered.

Any further conversation was cut short as Wheeljack announced, "prepare to evacuate, she's going to blow!"

"Did I tell you that Wheeljack's inventions always blow up? Why don't anyone ever listen to me?" Red Alert complained as they rushed for the doors.

"Because you always think that something is going to go wrong, that's why!" Bluestreak snapped back as they threw themselves into space.

The explosion of the ship then did the rest, the force of the blast sending them on course with Earth, sending them screaming through the atmosphere.

* * *

She was back in the classroom, her last memory being of her head falling to her pillow. Sitting at one of the desks and staring ahead at the blackboard. Only difference being that she wasn't alone. In front of her stood a transformer, but not the towering kind of transformers, but one only a few feet taller than her. His base-color was white, while the details were black. His eyes were purple.

"Who are you?"

There was a pause, and she wondered if he was simply an inanimate figment of her imagination, but he spoke in a voice that echoed within her. "I did not have a name when I was alive, but I am told that my descendants named me Prime." He paused, and she wondered if it was for dramatic effect. "I will also be your teacher."

**End of 005**

* * *

_Oh dear, seems like Elle's going back to school._


	6. Learning Pains

_If Elle was real, she'd kill me for sending her back to school. Fortunately Prime is with her to face the brunt of her annoyance._

* * *

**Murphy's Law**

_006_

Back to School

"Prime? As in Optimus Prime?" Elle's eyebrows shot up, and she held up her legs to allow the skunk-creature to pass beneath her desk. "And what's that?"

"I believe that Optimus is my distant descendant, and that is a program scouring through your processes so that we can adapt to our new surroundings," Prime answered, following the creature with his optics as it suddenly disappeared again. "Why it takes that shape within your dreams, I do not know." It seemed to aggravate him to admit as much.

"If I got the Protocols within me since Mission City, then the surroundings are hardly new," Elle countered.

"I suppose that in a sense you're right, but you're still wrong."

"Come again."

"When we were transferred to your processor, or brain as you humans call it, it was with the intention to prevent you from dying from energon poisoning." Prime drew himself up into full Lecture-Prime mode, one which would have been familiar to many Autobots. "We weren't supposed to activate after that, just simply following you into the grave or transferring to another processor if the possibility presented itself. Unfortunately, you came within the radiation radius of a spark, which set off several commands and we now see that the situation cannot simply be ignored."

"Can't be ignored, right." Elle rubbed her temples. "Anything else I should know?"

"Yes, we find your current body... inadequate for containment of the Protocols." Prime struggled to find a sensible explanation. "Just an imbalance in your chemical levels could set off a random command, an instinctive response could be devastating and an unconscious wish could end badly. On top of that, the activation of the Protocols will put your body through a lot of stress, aging it prematurely."

Elle knew what he meant, but she still had to ask. "Please clarify."

"We should start at the beginning," Prime said. "When we were first transferred into you, we slightly changed the nervous system in order not to paralyze you. During this process, internal radiation also temporarily strengthened your body and scrambled your thought process in order to keep you functional as well as the Protocols alive. That was why you could lift things of far greater weight than you had muscle-mass for, and why you became interested in mechanics, because you subconsciously absorbed the main purpose of the Energon Protocols; the creation of protoforms and sparks. However, it put a lot of stress on you and your body, for which I apologize. That was why it was the first thing I undid when we were activated by the presence of Sunstreaker's spark. But you became injured, and it became clear that your current body simply cannot handle the current situation."

"Will I die?" Elle cut in.

"We can change you, give you a human life with a body reminiscent of Cybertronian protoforms. You would hardly notice a difference from your human body, yet it will be strengthened, and problems and imperfections like your genetic disposition for diabetes and your kiwifruit allergy will be removed. The Protocols will also need more solid commands in order to execute them, cutting down on accidents." Prime paused again, apparently fond of dramatic pauses. "However, if you do not change, you will have the body of a seventy years old woman within ten years, since with our activation, your body is put under a lot more stress than when we're dormant."

Elle grimaced. "So, is there a choice?"

"There's always a choice, even if the options aren't attractive."

"And I'm not going to notice any changes? I'll still be essentially human?"

"As human as you can be." Not a very reassuring answer, but she wasn't picky.

"And you aren't a figment of my imagination, sent to confuse and distract me?" She had to check, even if it didn't feel like it.

"I am the transformer that transformed into the vessel of the All Spark the moment Primus ceased communicating with his children. I am the first transformer ever created, even before Cybertron itself existed and Primus and Unicron were one being. I am-" The more he spoke, the more pompous and insulted his voice grew.

"Okay, okay!" Elle cut in. "You're not a figment, I get it."

"Good, so what is your decision?"

"Lets see, being irreversibly changed into an alien or turn into a granny in my thirties..."

"Technically, you would not be an alien. You're born on Earth, as will this new technology."

"Correction: Irreversibly being the experiment of a dead, narcissistic, panda-colored alien or turn into a granny in my thirties."

"I'm not narcissistic." Prime paused, frowning. "Or a panda."

"Well, from this day forward, you shall be known as Panda Prime to differentiate between you and Optimus. This is nonnegotiable in the terms with which I will allow you to experiment on my body." Elle smiled at him.

* * *

Chromia groaned, her deep blue and chrome armor singed and dented from her landing. Larger than the average femme, she had created an impressive crater in a field that had evidently been cared for by sentient lifeforms. It was with effort that she heaved herself to her feet, her head buzzing with the unprotected data that permeated the atmosphere of this planet. She managed to find and process the languages of the planet, before limping towards what must have been human dwellings.

There she saw what humans termed "All Terrain Vehicles" and a GPS search found that she was in a place of human recreation, a type of recreation she would like to try herself. Scanning the ATVs, she did some of her own adjustments (seriously, these vehicles toppled over too easily!), and then transformed, ignoring the pain and aches.

When that was done, she sped off to convene with the others.

* * *

"Arcee and Ironhide are excited," Epps remarked as the plane started to descend.

"We picked up Chromia's signal, so it's only natural," Jolt answered, rather excited himself. "She's Arcee's sister and Ironhide's... ah, I guess you would say wife."

"That explains it." Epps settled down, then his eyes widened. _Arcee's sister? As in "Holy Shit! We're dead if Arcee finds out we dumped a can of blue paint on her red unit!"-Arcee? And Ironhide as in "I'm an entire army's artillery"-Ironhide? Then what's Chromia like?_ "We're doomed."

"Well, Chromia shouldn't be your biggest worry, not that you shouldn't worry, but you can at least reason with her. We picked up Wheeljack's and Red Alert's signals as well, and those two can blow up a solar system just by trying to help." Jolt remembered, though the solar system incident was an isolated accident involving a black hole, but it was commonly attributed to Wheeljack's and Red Alert's antimatter shield. At least it had been a dead solar system. "And you just can't stop them."

"Thanks for cheering me up."

"You're welcome."

"That was _sarcasm_."

"Yeah, I know. And don't try sarcasm with Prowl in the beginning. He has a tendency to take everything literally and then blow a fuse, and then he topples over and could crush you."

* * *

Prowl pressed himself between the large building and the trees, waiting for the humans in the vehicles called "patrol cars" to disperse from their investigation of the crater he had made in the parking lot. They did some sort of body communication by lifting their shoulders before calling for more people.

Making his decision, Prowl scanned one of the patrol cars, transforming and hiding himself in the crowd. Soon, he was able to pull out alongside three others responding to a robbery, before making a break for it.

* * *

"So, I'll be a changed woman once the week is out?" Elle asked as _Panda_ Prime drew diagrams and tried to explain the process to her. "And stop that. I have no idea what those circles and spirals mean."

"Basically, yes." Panda Prime resigned himself to his fate. Besides changing his name, she had negotiated several deals, though she didn't know that he was going to do most of it anyway.

"And now, you'll tell me how to break the bonds I accidentally forged with the Autobots."

"I really don't recommend breaking the bonds. At least not before the change. It could cause you to go into a severe shock, especially as you have no real bonds to fall back on once the isolation hits."

"Then change me."

"Are you sure? You wont be able to wake before the change is complete."

"Do it before I change my mind."

* * *

The thought of Prowl being greeted by either set of twins upon arrival to Earth wasn't pretty, so both sets had been left behind, much to their displeasure. The only one more displeased was Ratchet, who had to strap them down in the med bay and offline their motoring systems to keep them from sneaking on-board. And now he was stuck with four, very mouthy terrors and hammering out dents in Sunstreaker's armor. He really wasn't paid enough for this.

"I say-" Skids started.

"Shut up before I offline your vocalization boxes as well." Ratchet finished with Sunstreaker before lumbering over to the human area, intent to scanning Elle again.

"Hey, wha's happenin'?" Mudflap wondered as Ratchet raised the alarm, human medics suddenly swarming towards Elle's room.

"Energon girl's heartbeat stopped," one of the mechanics supplied. "And whatever nano-machines that are in her are multiplying rapidly, which means that we'll be taking care of you while Ratchet concentrates on the girl." The last was said to Sunstreaker with a certain kind of demented cheerfulness that made their spark-chambers cold.

* * *

Red Alert wasn't merely surprised or shocked once he had finished scanning his surroundings. He was appalled and horrified! Everything on this planet was fragile, easy to hack or just plain unprepared for anything space might throw at them. He had promptly chosen his native alt-mode (an emergency vehicle fully stocked, of course) and now had taken it upon himself to patrol the streets until he was picked up.

Only, he met his first obstacle as he found a passed out, inebriated human in an alley (didn't he see the obvious dangers with drinking and passing out where other humans, animals, aliens and even the weather could get him, if the germs from the nearby dumpster did not?). A talking car would certainly not be taken well, despite the drunken state of the human. Fortunately, transformers came with the ability of solid holograms, which Red Alert utilized, having picked an image from the "internet" and aged the man, before changing his hair and eye colors (the latter being the same bright blue as his optics, a limitation that Primus put on this very convenient ability).

It didn't take much for his hologram to rouse the human, who promptly regurgitated whatever was left in his stomach. Then, speaking minimally (he really wasn't confident in his human manners), he managed to coax the human into his alt-mode, and his address, before driving the human home. Only then, it seemed, did the human take a good look at his hologram.

"Say, ya wouldn't be related to Brad Pitt, wouldya?"

* * *

Elle found out something really fascinating about dreams during her impromptu history lesson. Despite already being asleep, you could feel the urge to fall asleep again, as _Panda_ Prime lectured about the creation of Primus and Terra and the rest of the life-creators, the creation of first life, Cybertron and Earth, and how Cybertron traveled through space and whatnot. Just in a million words or more about each stage. Really, only a politician could say nothing in a thousand words or more.

"Hold it!" Elle held up a hand, thankfully stopping the flow of words. "You keep talking about souls like they're sparks and energon and other stuff I don't really understand or believe in."

"Well, in the beginning all beings needed energon to keep their souls or sparks going. Earth's lifeforms simply evolved to a point when they didn't need energon anymore. A perk of having such short lives, if you will."

"Aren't souls a religious construct?"

"We could call them sparks, if you want, but souls would be better since they have evolved beyond the capabilities of sparks."

"Aren't we just arguing semantics, right now? I don't believe in souls, and the only reason why I believe in sparks if because I've seen one." Elle rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache settling in.

"Souls used to be visible when they processed energon."

"When they were sparks, you mean?" Elle sighed. "Change of subject. Lets talk about puppies or kitties instead."

"But I don't know-"

"Puppies or kitties. They wont give me a headache, and I wont whine your audio receptors off."

"Right, the German Shepherd isn't born with standing ears..."

* * *

Will wasn't sure if he should feel grateful or suspicious that no Decepticons interrupted their round-up of the new arrivals. On one hand, they had managed to get into enough trouble as it were (Prowl being a police car without license plates, Red Alert making unauthorized contact with civilians, Wheeljack uprooting the park's trees to observe the strength of their root systems, Hot Shot and Hot Rod ending up in a drag race... and well, the list just grew with the number of Autobots retrieved. At least Chromia had been nice enough to keep out of trouble, though an overly excited Ironhide nearly transformed in front of civilians upon meeting up with her), on the other hand, it had been years since they could meet uninterrupted with new bots, as always a seeker or conveniently close by Constructicon would show up, which was really, really disconcerting.

Well, no sense in thinking about what ifs when everything went as smoothly as it could. Even if Optimus Prime seemed to have been especially stern with the one called Bluestreak.

* * *

"Speaking of pets, you know, that's one of the truly unique things about Earth," Prime changed gears on the kitten's shouldn't be allowed to play with yarn discussion. "That so many species actually come to care for one another, and even forge bonds, is something Cybertronians have never encountered before."

"Huh? I can kind of see giant robots getting out of the beasts of burden and hunting partners phase of evolution, but other aliens?" Elle's eyebrows flew up.

"I don't mean that sapient aliens doesn't make use of non-sapient ones, I mean that you actually _care_." Prime started to grow incensed as he continued. "There's was this planet with sapient aliens which used larger creatures to carry building materials, but other than capturing and forcing them to work, they did not feed or interact with them at all. Once used, it didn't matter if those larger creatures died."

"But isn't that illogical? If you want a horse to do its best, you feed it and motivate it."

"That's only if you consider animals to be close enough to your own species, that you consider that they need the same as you do. While Cybertronians haven't made contact with every alien species in the universe, the ones we've had contact with, differentiate a lot between species, especially between themselves and others." Prime looked uncomfortable as he continued. "Transformers started out the same way, that's why solar harvesting was considered a viable choice for sustenance."

"Wait, you said choice, does this mean that there were other choices?"

"All life-planets produces energon by themselves, only, they do so deep within themselves. The problem is that Primus is situated deep within Cybertron, and could be harmed or otherwise compromised if transformers were allowed to travel beneath the seventh layer. Of course, by the time I was sent into space, Primus was as good as dead and energon production had completely ceased as Cybertron itself died."

Elle's mouth dropped open and her eyes widened in realization. "_That's_ why you came to Earth! We're a life-planet, a living planet, which means that there's energon here!"

"Yes. Megatronus knew that there was energon in this solar system, which was why he first went here. Unfortunately he misunderstood and believed your sun to be ready for harvest. Life-planets are so valuable, that I ordered my children, the Primes, to stop him, no matter the costs." Prime sighed tiredly. "You didn't think that Megatronus, the All Spark and Megatron all would arrive here by coincidence, did you? Or that completely unrelated and alien species would be able to understand each other so much, if we did not come from the same source?"

"Okay, so now we're going to talk about cupcakes instead!"

"But-"

"Need time to digest. Now, how does one make pink frosting?"

* * *

Chromia loved Ironhide and Arcee dearly, but for the love of Primus, she wished they would shut up about these humans. Ironhide babbled about how much "Annabelle" would love to meet her, and Arcee kept talking about "they'll freak out when they realize that there's more femmes out there", and in-between they hoisted humans to the skies in a way she'd only heard them talk about loved ones before. Chromia hated to admit it, but she was feeling jealous.

So she tuned out her family's jabbering and focused on Optimus and Bluestreak instead. She knew that Bluestreak was ‒what humans called it? Oh yeah! ‒on thin ice for making the decision to move several senior officers to Earth without consulting Optimus. She didn't really blame him, if she had been through what he barely survived, and heard that a similar overture was happening elsewhere with the same culprits? She'd do the same.

"I understand that your personal history with seekers was a factor in your decision," Optimus said in a completely neutral tone.

"Sir, I would never base my orders on my personal feelings," Bluestreak replied an equally formulaic way.

"Even so, I am relieving you of your command. While your reasoning might not be sound, the results are favorable considering recent developments."

Bluestreak relaxed, feeling as if a weight had vanished from his spark. He had never been cut out for commanding others, but as 'bots kept dying in the war, he soon found himself the only one capable of taking command of a unit after their general died, and he had done so effectively and with minimal causalities, and thus given his own team upon reconvening with Optimus before Optimus left for Earth.

As far as punishments went, it was a non-punishment, and Bluestreak knew why. It was always the same story. Pity. Ever since Praxus' destruction everyone had treated him like he would snap at the smallest provocation. But by now, he was used to it (lets face it, the Praxus incident was _the_ point of no return in the war, which put it at millions of years ago, plenty of time to get used to his new status as sole survivor of the biggest Decepticon massacre in history), and did not flare up in indignation as he would have done before.

"Aw, don't worry, you'll get right back to things once you've settled in," one of the higher ranked humans who had introduced himself as 'Reilly' patted Bluestreak's hood. "Can't be worse than Sunshine."

"_Sunshine_?" Bluestreak gasped. He thought the Decepticon seeker dead!

"Sunstreaker," Optimus quickly clarified, before explaining to Reilly. "Sunshine is the name of a dead Decepticon, I advise you do not call Sunstreaker that."

"Well, we still have 'Sunny-Sides-up' for both of them," Reilly conceded. "And Sunny. You think he'll accidentally shoot at me if I call him Bling?"

"Yes." There was amusement in Optimus' voice, amusement and affection. "I would also be near cover if I was human and calling him anything but his full designation."

Epps approached them, raising an eyebrow. "So, there's a Decepticon named Sunshine? Isn't that a bit... wrong?"

"Next thing you know, there'll be a Morning Glory!" Reilly joked.

The transformers around them ‒Chromia, Bluestreak, Optimus and Red Alert ‒became suspiciously silent.

"It's a flower! From Earth!" Reilly cried out in disbelief.

"It was considered a very popular designation in the second and third generation of transformers," Red Alert admitted. "Morning, as in tomorrow, as in the future, and then Glory. So it meant Future Glory, particularly as mornings only happened on Cybertron when we approached other suns to harvest them."

"Speaking of sun-themed seekers," Bluestreak broke through the awkward silence the followed. "Sunstorm is probably around, and from what I gather, humans do not have any defenses against his particular ability."

"What ability?" Epps wondered.

"His frame projects a super-heated field of radiation capable of melting, well, anything. On top of being a seeker almost as good as Starscream," Chromia supplied.

"And he's completely, and utterly, insane. He's convinced that he's a messiah figure of beings from our distant mythology. Why he follows Megatron, I don't know, but he does so with militant, religious fury," Bluestreak continued.

"Great." Both Epps and Reilly paled several shades.

"Not to mention that every other seeker ‒confirmed to be alive in the past century ‒is in this solar system," Chromia quipped, honestly curious how humans would handle the thought of impossible odds. "Skywarp is insane, and able to teleport. Thundercracker can crack any system at any time. Dirge is unable to feel pain. Ramjet has a hardened frame, possibly the only thing capable of withstanding Sunstorm's touch. Skyquake is capable of emitting supersonic shock waves on top of being pure evil. Acid Storm is self-descriptive, and also a tripartite like Arcee. Should I continue?" Chromia watched with interest how humans would cope with impossible odds.

"Maybe when I have a pen and paper. Though, is there anything else we should know?" Epps asked.

"Ah, right, Optimus, sir, we forgot to report this to you, but after taking a Decepticon base we managed to get files on some of their soldiers, and Starscream's was particularly interesting." Bluestreak took over. "Apparently, Starscream's spark is immortal. It doesn't need energon. That's how he became a leader in Megatron's absence, he was literally the only one not living on borrowed time."

"Um, is it usual for super soldiers in your culture to be granted super powers?" Reilly squeaked. Yes, squeaked, because of all the 'cons to be immortal, Starscream was the second worst one.

"No." Optimus frowned. "I tended to the All Spark when most of them were sparked, and none were sparked with these abilities."

"Yet they have abilities only the All Spark should have been able to grant them," Chromia countered.

"If they had these abilities at the beginning of the war, we would have lost," Optimus argued. "We didn't expect the first attack, and only by luck managed to escape. If Skywarp could teleport, we would have had nowhere to run." Optimus paused, as he suddenly remembered. "Most of the seekers were also sane back then."

"And now most are insane," Chromia followed his train of thought. "You don't think they experimented on their own sparks? To gain abilities yet the process in turn made most of them insane?"

"Starscream _did_ research sparks and energon in that illegal lab of his," Optimus agreed. "I would have to ask Ratchet and Wheeljack if it would be possible."

"Would also explain so many dead seekers," Chromia finished.

Bluestreak was quiet, but couldn't shake off that somewhere in this conversation about seekers, he'd missed something crucial. He knew that a sizable population of the seekers died in Praxus, but what else was he missing? It was driving him crazy!

An agitated revving of an engine cut off his thoughts. "Optimus?"

"Ratchet just contacted me. Something is going on with Elle."

"Good or bad?" Epps asked.

"He couldn't say."

"Who's Elle?" Bluestreak asked.

* * *

"These are your memories, aren't they?" One second, they had been in the psychedelic classroom, the other second, they were on a planet without a sun, yet with a moon, and ambient, unnatural lights being reflected off chromed fields. It resembled Ratchet's description of Cybertron.

"It started earlier than I anticipated." Prime frowned. "I hoped to explain things to you before it came to this."

"To what?" Elle looked up at the now transformer-sized Prime.

"Human bodies have a near-infinite potential, and are capable of supporting two sparks. Protoforms are not."

"So you're kicking me out of my own body?" Elle snapped, fury and panic making her voice reach a higher pitch.

Prime laughed. "Why would I? All I know is dead and buried. Hardly a world I wish to return to."

"Then what?" Elle tentatively stepped onto his offered hand as he lifted her to his shoulder.

"Are humans familiar with the belief that we see our lives flash before our eyes before we die?"

**End of 006**

* * *

_Okay, this chapter was rewritten twelve times. Since I'm not particularly keen on rewriting it again, it gets to stay like this, even though I'm not happy with it. Next chapter should hopefully be easier to write, and a better read._


End file.
